After the Female Star Was Slandered Onto the Trending Search List - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Weibo Hot Search: That Unknown Ex-Girlfriend of Hers

Wen Xi was jolted awake by a knock on the door.

She opened her eyes hazily, her chestnut-brown long hair tied up with a hair tie, still mostly neat.

Wancheng is located in the north, so the morning sun in June wasn’t intense. It shone warmly through the window onto Wen Xi, casting a faint layer of golden light.

As she got up, she felt a stiffness and soreness in her waist and back, realizing she had fallen asleep on the carpet, leaning against the sofa, last night.

The knocking continued.

Wen Xi raised her arm to rub her head, a hint of annoyance on her face. Without thinking too much, she slipped on her slippers and walked over to open the door.

The person standing there was wearing a white shirt, looking mature and steady, with a suit jacket draped over her arm. Her mixed-race features were exquisite and sharp, and she was looking at Wen Xi with a slight frown.

“Why are you here so early?” Wen Xi asked the female CEO who was skipping work to find her, her voice husky from just waking up.

“You…” Yu Qiao looked at her, seeing she was fine, and tried hard to calm her anxious feelings, making her tone as gentle as possible. “Why weren’t you answering your phone?”

“Ah,” Wen Xi recalled, stepping aside to let Yu Qiao in. “I don’t have work today, and I had my phone on silent yesterday.”

Yu Qiao: “…”

Yu Qiao didn’t know what to say. She had been worried sick outside, almost fearing something terrible had happened to Wen Xi.

However, after Yu Qiao entered, she caught the strong scent of alcohol lingering in the air. Seeing the empty bottles on the coffee table, her frown deepened: “You were drinking again? And so much? You must have been drunk last night.”

Wen Xi didn’t respond, yawning as she walked over and sat down on the sofa.

She casually grabbed a throw pillow and hugged it, a hint of tears welling up in the corners of her eyes.

A laptop was still on the coffee table, and a cushion lay on the floor. Yu Qiao continued: “You slept on the floor last night? Don’t you know…”

Wen Xi sighed helplessly, gently interrupting her: “CEO Yu, it’s June now. It’s not cold sitting on the floor. I just fell asleep because I was too tired last night. I’ll be careful in the future.”

“If you worried me less, I wouldn’t need to lecture you,” Yu Qiao placed her jacket aside and sat on the sofa. “If you keep this up, I won’t hesitate to contact your landlord, buy this apartment, and make you move in with me.”

After years of interacting with Wen Xi, Yu Qiao deeply realized that Wen Xi only looked obedient, but in reality, she was completely in one ear and out the other.

Wen Xi lowered her head and fell silent again.

“Your phone.” Yu Qiao sighed silently, lifting her chin to signal Wen Xi to pick up the phone from the coffee table.

“What about my phone?” Wen Xi stood up to grab it. Before she could unlock it, she saw a pile of missed calls, several of which were from her assistant. “Why did they call me so many times?”

“…You’ll know if you check Weibo.” Yu Qiao sneered lightly. “You know what you posted.”

Hearing the word Weibo, Wen Xi’s face turned unnatural.

She felt a little guilty.

Because her Weibo account had a significant follower count, she usually kept Weibo notifications muted. She wouldn’t know anything until she opened the app.

Hearing Yu Qiao’s words now, her heart grew increasingly nervous and uneasy. She was somewhat afraid to even click open Weibo.

Wen Xi pretended to be confused and asked, “What?”

“Remember to look at the hot search.” Yu Qiao didn’t elaborate, only offering the hint.

Wen Xi had no choice but to exhale softly. When she opened Weibo, her phone briefly lagged. The moment she logged on, she received countless likes, comments, and reposts, and her private messages suddenly surged.

With Yu Qiao nearby, Wen Xi didn’t dwell on them; after all, it was dishonest to say she wasn’t guilty.

But the moment she saw the Weibo hot search, her guilt suddenly vanished, and her mind went blank for a second.

#ShenYuEventColdFace#

#CongratsonGettingRidoftheFakeSmile#

#ShenYuRefusesToWork#

#ShenYuActsLikeADivaCaughtOnCamera#

Several consecutive hashtags about Shen Yu were hanging on the hot search, each followed by the character for “Explosive”.

Wen Xi’s heart involuntarily skipped a beat, and her pupils narrowed.

With slightly shaky fingers, she clicked on the hashtag with the highest heat. Her own post was at the very top of the feed.

“Twilight: Thank you for the invitation to Xinghui Entertainment’s annual meeting. I had a super happy day ツ”

“Attached: 9 Pictures”

And the last of the nine pictures was Shen Yu looking coldly at the camera.

She was wearing a dark evening gown, and her exquisite, sharp makeup paired with the indifferent expression made her look exceptionally unapproachable.

The cold-faced Shen Yu in the ninth picture formed a stark contrast with the other eight pictures of stars diligently putting on their professional smiles.

Shen Yu, the newly appointed top star in the entertainment industry, was a graduate of a prestigious university’s performance department and had recently won the Best Actress award.

Although she specialized in acting, her foundation in singing and stage performance was also solid, giving anti-fans little to criticize. This was why even such an ordinary event photo could instantly be pushed onto the hot search.

After all, in the entertainment industry, the smallest details can be infinitely magnified, and taking things out of context is common practice. They don’t care about the process; they only care about what they see.

Aside from anti-fans criticizing just to criticize, another reason was that Shen Yu’s expression during every promotional appearance was remarkably uniform—her perennial smiling face.

Because of this unchanging professional smile, some bored anti-fans, using comparison photos, found that aside from a few mismatched pixels, the overlap in her expressions was terrifyingly high.

Since then, Shen Yu had been labeled with tags like “Eerie” and “Impostor.”

This made the event photo taken by Wen Xi particularly “rare.”

The comment section below her post and on the general feed had already erupted into a massive argument.

“Shen Yu finally stopped smiling. Her expression never changed during promotions before, it was too ridiculous!”

“Did her facial expression management fail this time? The blogger photographed eight others with normal expressions, but Shen Yu is giving a cold face. Who is she showing that to?”

“Was she being rude today?”

“Congratulations, your star is finally getting rid of the title ‘Perennial Fake Smile’!”

“I’m dying of laughter. I knew this Shen Yu would crash and burn one day.”

Of course, there were other replies besides the haters:

“The blogger takes such great photos! This blogger is famous! I always regretted they hadn’t photographed my sister, and this time they finally did, and she looks so cool! I’m completely swooning!”

“My god, that look! It’s deadly!! I’m fainting right now!”

“Teacher T has released food again! A whole nine-picture post! Everyone come and feast!”

“Teacher T took such beautiful pictures of our sister. Stop spreading rumors, hate accounts. Everyone should pay more attention to our sister’s new drama!”

“Seriously, is Teacher T wrong for taking a picture? Some fans and anti-fans in the comments are being absurd. Be careful, or they won’t take pictures for you anymore. You won’t get any “food” from this fandom here.”

But even after scrolling through the comments, negative reviews still predominated.

The corners of Wen Xi’s eyes involuntarily turned red.

“Can… can we take down the hot search?” After a long pause, Wen Xi finally spoke with difficulty. “Or maybe I should just delete the Weibo post.”

Wen Xi regretted it immensely.

It was their first reunion in ten years. How could she have caused Shen Yu to be slammed on the hot search?

…She really couldn’t do anything right.

“Deleting the post won’t solve the problem. If you delete it now, others will just assume Shen Yu’s side pressured you,” Yu Qiao said, looking at Wen Xi’s slightly red eyes, her hand clenched slightly. “You think I don’t want to take down the hot search? She blocked it.”

Wen Xi was stunned, momentarily forgetting how to react. “Blocked by who?”

“Who else could it be?” Yu Qiao continued. “It was blocked by Shen Yu’s side. She doesn’t want to remove the hot search.”

Wen Xi couldn’t believe what she heard. Her eyes trembled slightly as she asked, “She doesn’t want to remove it? Why?”

Yu Qiao chuckled lightly, but there was a meaningful hint in her smile. “Why do you think? It’s probably because she found you.”

Wen Xi’s phone had automatically gone to sleep. Her slightly pale face was reflected in the screen.

She tried hard to explain: “I didn’t mean to see her. I didn’t know she saw me. The event organizer said there would be a mystery guest, but they didn’t tell me who. I didn’t know… it was her.”

Yu Qiao sighed helplessly: “Then you shouldn’t have posted her picture. Weren’t you trying to avoid her?”

And the picture she posted was Shen Yu’s cold face.

Wen Xi frowned slightly in frustration: “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

At the time, she just felt that the photo was the first one she had ever taken of Shen Yu, so it held a different kind of significance, and it was a good picture.

When editing the photo, Wen Xi also strongly felt that Shen Yu in the picture seemed to be making eye contact with her lens.

Yesterday.

Wen Xi had two assistants, one male and one female.

Her right hand had been injured and couldn’t lift heavy objects, so the male assistant, Feng Lexian, usually handled and carried heavy equipment. The female assistant, Pu Tao, was generally responsible for her schedule and personal affairs.

The Xinghui Entertainment annual meeting wasn’t exactly a partnership, but as a photographer invited to attend, she would routinely take some pictures. Since there were no strict requirements for the photo quality, she brought a lightweight mirrorless camera and only had Pu Tao accompany her.

Xinghui Entertainment is a film and television company that has produced several massive hit dramas. She had previously photographed some of their artists’ fitting photos and maintained a pleasant relationship with the person in charge.

The person in charge was a typical elite female executive who naturally had a good impression of a young woman like Wen Xi. Knowing Wen Xi was on-site, she specially arranged for someone to meet her.

The person led her to a spot on the side of the red carpet with excellent visibility: “I heard from Sister Tan that Teacher T wanted to take a few photos. Teacher T, you can stay here. The red carpet will start in half an hour.”

Wen Xi was carrying a cross-body bag and wearing a floral dress, her hair loosely tied into a bun. She said softly, “Thank you, you’ve worked hard. But could you send me a copy of the red carpet guest list? I need to match the photos to the people. Sister Tan showed me a glance before, but she later said a few more people were added and hasn’t sent me the complete list yet.”

She usually looked at the guest list before attending events. It was fine a few years ago, but since Shen Yu became hugely popular in recent years, she had to check the list for Shen Yu’s name before deciding whether or not to attend.

Of course, directly asking others if Shen Yu was on the list would be too strange, so she roundaboutly said she needed to match the names on the list with the people.

After all, with the constant influx of new people in the entertainment industry, she couldn’t recognize everyone.

By now, she had been hiding from Shen Yu for nearly ten years.

In the first few years, to avoid her, she didn’t dare ask for any news about Shen Yu.

But now that Shen Yu was hugely popular, relevant news was everywhere. Her personal small Weibo account had even infiltrated a fan group. She could now follow Shen Yu’s activities at all times.

This was enough; Wen Xi wasn’t greedy.

Shen Yu was an encounter during her first awakening of love, and her only one.

The breakup was not peaceful; she initiated the split, then abandoned her and walked away.

She felt Shen Yu must hate her guts by now.

Let her hate, Wen Xi would sometimes strangely think. Hate was better than Shen Yu forgetting her entirely.

The person who met her nodded and said, “It’s a small thing. Let’s exchange contact info, Teacher T, and I’ll send you a copy.”

Wen Xi nodded, providing her work WeChat account, and waited for the person to send the document.

“However,” the person teased, “there is a mystery guest who hasn’t been announced. Even I don’t know who it is right now.”

Wen Xi suddenly felt a sense of inexplicable unease, but she didn’t show it, only thanking the person.

After the person left, Pu Tao, her assistant, wondered aloud, “They are keeping it that secret? The staff doesn’t even know who the mystery guest is when the red carpet is about to start?”

Wen Xi’s pretty brows furrowed slightly. She joked, “Maybe they want to give us a surprise.”

“That’s possible,” Pu Tao pondered and nodded. “But they probably all have to sign some kind of agreement not to talk to outsiders. But this makes me even more curious about who the mystery guest is!”

“Curious about what?” A look of helplessness appeared on Wen Xi’s face. “Aren’t you tired of seeing big stars with me?”

“Hehe,” Pu Tao laughed sheepishly. “Following the boss naturally means eating well and living well! But there are still a few I haven’t seen!”

Wen Xi smiled silently. She and Pu Tao had met most artists in the industry, except for a few special cases.

Such as… Shen Yu.

No one around her, except Yu Qiao, knew about her past with Shen Yu. Pu Tao didn’t know she was hiding from Shen Yu, only thinking they hadn’t had a chance to collaborate.

After all, Wen Xi had a secondary Weibo account and was active in Shen Yu’s fan groups. Sometimes when Wen Xi was too busy, Pu Tao even helped her check in.

So Pu Tao always knew Wen Xi “followed” Shen Yu, but only in the fan sense.

Pu Tao began to guess boldly: “What if the mystery guest is Shen Yu? Boss, I will definitely be a social butterfly and get you an autograph!”

Wen Xi replied with a strained smile: “I’ll thank you in advance then.”

Who would have thought Pu Tao’s mouth would be so prophetic.