Superstar Assistant [GL] - Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Li Ziyu brought Zhou Tiantian to the director’s room. Director Li Sheng saw Li Ziyu and asked her with great enthusiasm and some concern: “How are you going to deal with everything that was spread online today? I don’t know how those marketing accounts managed to figure it out. I’ve seen you treat your assistant quite well on set, so how did it turn into you abusing your assistant in their mouths?”

Li Ziyu smiled and said, “The industry has always been like this. They post whatever news is most popular, don’t they? There’s nothing that can be done, so I came to ask for the director’s help today.”

Li Sheng quickly said, “We are all part of the same crew, and after working together for so long, we are friends. Just tell me directly what you need help with.”

Li Ziyu actually has a bit of a temper, but this is limited to people who frequently annoy her. In the director’s eyes, Li Ziyu is a very dedicated actress. No matter what the director wants or how late they have to shoot, Li Ziyu never complains. She is very professional in her work, and she is the lead actress in his current show. If Li Ziyu’s image is damaged before the show even airs, it will definitely affect its future broadcast.

The director could guess that she wanted him to help deal with the negative news, but from any perspective, the director was willing to assist.

Li Ziyu thanked the director, then brought Zhou Tiantian forward and said to the director: “My assistant is primarily responsible for handling today’s matter. I asked her to tell Director Li about her idea.”

Li Sheng immediately focused his attention on Zhou Tiantian, looking ready to listen attentively. This was the first time in both her lives that Zhou Tiantian was doing something so important, and she couldn’t help but feel nervous. She turned to look at Li Ziyu, who smiled slightly and told her, “It’s alright, the director is very nice. Just tell him whatever ideas you have.”

Li Sheng also offered a few encouraging words. He knew Zhou Tiantian was Li Ziyu’s new assistant and had a good impression of her.

Zhou Tiantian finally gathered her courage and said to Li Sheng: “Director Li, we must suppress the news about Ziyu now, so we’d like to ask for your help. I know that in this drama, Ziyu’s character is very strict with her assistant, which happens to match today’s news. I was wondering if Director Li would mind if we merged the topic of Li Ziyu abusing her assistant with her character’s image in the show. This way, we can resolve the current public opinion and also promote the drama.”

Zhou Tiantian was trembling after finishing her speech. This was the first time she had done something like this in both her lives, and she felt extremely nervous and slightly scared, knowing that the director hadn’t finished shooting yet and might not be thinking about promoting the drama. Moreover, for the director, Li Ziyu abusing her assistant was negative news and not necessarily a great promotional opportunity. A slight mistake could lead to the drama being criticized by netizens.

The director didn’t immediately agree. He settled down and thought about it. The drama had just started filming, so promotion wasn’t urgent, but in this day and age, traffic truly dictates many things. If the audience could be made aware of the drama now, it might be easier to handle things when the formal promotion day arrived. However, since the news was negative, the promotion had to be carefully controlled to avoid being counterproductive.

Finally, Li Sheng nodded and said to Zhou Tiantian: “Your idea is feasible, but during the execution, you must be careful not to provoke resentment from netizens.”

Zhou Tiantian nodded in agreement. After a few more words with the director, Li Ziyu took her away. They then went together to find the drama crew’s publicity manager.

The crew’s publicity manager, Zhang Yang, had already received a call from the director. After greeting Li Ziyu and Zhou Tiantian, she immediately looked at Zhou Tiantian and asked: “What exactly are your ideas, Assistant Zhou?”

Zhou Tiantian took a deep breath and said to Zhang Yang: “During a previous shoot, I saw a scene where Ziyu’s character chastised her assistant. I think we can edit this clip and post it online to guide netizens to discuss the plot in the clip, linking the current topic to the relationship between Li Ziyu and her assistant in the drama. This can also guide the audience to be curious about what the drama is about that would lead to the topic of Li Ziyu abusing her assistant.”

Zhang Yang nodded: “That can indeed promote the drama. However, we cannot deliberately show that we started this topic; we should just piggyback on the trending topic and guide the netizens. If the hype is too obvious, and others realize we are deliberately promoting the drama, netizens will be very disgusted.”

Zhou Tiantian originally had the same thought and nodded in agreement. Seeing that the two of them had finished talking, Li Ziyu said to the publicity manager: “I wonder if you could please handle the initial guidance? My management team is currently unreachable. Once they are contacted, they will join in.”

Zhang Yang immediately said, “No problem, I will arrange it now.”

As the publicity manager, Zhang Yang naturally had her own team. When Li Ziyu and Zhou Tiantian returned to the room, Zhou Tiantian saw another marketing account post a video clip online. The video was an edited snippet from the drama Li Ziyu was currently filming, showing Li Ziyu, as the boss, chastising her subordinate for making a work mistake.

As soon as the video was released, countless netizens and marketing accounts reposted it, joking that Li Ziyu was too terrifying and that having such a boss was worse than death.

At this point, Li Ziyu contacted her agent and informed her about the situation. Naturally, she minimized Zhou Tiantian’s responsibility in her description. The agent then cooperated with the film crew to slowly guide the narrative of Li Ziyu abusing her assistant toward the promotion of the drama.

Many netizens who were causing a fuss were actually influenced by certain anti-fans’ comments. Seeing that most marketing accounts and netizens were now talking about the new drama, they slowly shifted their attention as well.

Zhou Tiantian finally breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the negative comments online slowly stop. She left Li Ziyu’s room to return to her own. Just as she stepped out of Li Ziyu’s room, Chong Ying opened her door next door, looked at Zhou Tiantian with a concerned smile, and said: “I see the online comments have turned into drama promotion. So, the matter is finally resolved.”

Zhou Tiantian didn’t like Chong Ying, but she had no choice. Given her and Chong Ying’s current status, it wasn’t her place to show disrespect, or else it would cause more trouble for Li Ziyu. So, Zhou Tiantian smiled and said to Chong Ying: “Thank you for your concern, Teacher Chong. The matter is resolved.”

Chong Ying sighed softly, “Fortunately, Ziyu is generous and didn’t hold it against you. Otherwise, firing you for what you did today wouldn’t be excessive.”

Zhou Tiantian actually agreed with her point of view. “Ziyu is truly kind. I will work hard and not let Ziyu down.”

Chong Ying rolled her eyes internally, and said coldly to Zhou Tiantian, “Don’t get too complacent just because you’re favored. As an assistant, you should act like one. Don’t think you can do whatever you want just because you are Ziyu’s high school classmate.”

Although Zhou Tiantian didn’t like Chong Ying, she agreed with her words and looked at her sincerely, thanking her: “Thank you for your concern, Teacher Chong. I will certainly continue to work diligently.”

Chong Ying gnashed her teeth, thinking, Who’s concerned about you? Don’t flatter yourself. But saying that out loud would make her seem too petty, so she ultimately had to grit her teeth and swallow the words, slamming the door shut.

Zhou Tiantian watched her look defeated and suddenly felt a bit relieved. Her mood slightly improved, and she returned to her own room.

The next morning, Zhou Tiantian prepared breakfast for Li Ziyu as usual. After Li Ziyu finished, she took her to the set, returned to the hotel to tidy the room, and then went back to the set to look after her.

Back on the set, while Li Ziyu was filming, Zhou Tiantian took out her phone, wanting to check if the trending topic from the previous night was truly resolved. When she opened Weibo, it almost crashed. Zhou Tiantian then realized that her follower count had suddenly surged, and she now had 30,000 followers.

Although the incident had occurred the day before, some fans were still begging Zhou Tiantian on her Weibo to post photos and daily life updates of Li Ziyu. Some of these fans were unaware that the trending topic originated from a careless remark by Zhou Tiantian, while others genuinely believed that the incident was merely a promotional stunt by the crew and didn’t realize the inherent danger of the situation.

But Zhou Tiantian was different. She had already experienced the terror of cyberbullying, so she was extremely cautious when answering these questions today. She even avoided answering fan questions randomly, which led some fans to comment that Zhou Tiantian was no longer as sweet and soft as before.

When Li Ziyu finished filming, Zhou Tiantian asked her: “Fans keep asking me to post your photos and daily life updates. Can I post them?”

Li Ziyu thought for a moment and told Zhou Tiantian: “You can post them, or you don’t have to. As my personal assistant, you have no obligation to do this promotional work for me. But if you have other ideas, you can use your Weibo to figure out how to both promote me, increase my fans’ loyalty, and avoid being exploited by others. If you can handle this kind of promotional work well, your future career advancement will be easier.”

From the very beginning of her relationship with Li Ziyu, Zhou Tiantian knew that the career prospects of this assistant job were far better than her previous work, although the difficulty was also much greater. However, Zhou Tiantian was willing to put in the effort. This was something she had decided to do on the first day of her rebirth: she absolutely had to work hard to change the outcome of her previous life. Since Li Ziyu had given her this opportunity, allowing her to manage an assistant Weibo while being a personal assistant, Zhou Tiantian was determined to seize this chance, do this job well, gain more experience in this area, and be able to do more for Li Ziyu in the future.