The Fake Daughter is a Max-Level Green Tea [Transmigrated into a Book] - Chapter 39

Chapter 39: Lin Chumu’s Past

Lu Chaoqing: “…”

The moment the punishment was revealed, she immediately realized she had shot herself in the foot.

However, the words had already been spoken. She had watched Lin Chumu take several punishments earlier; if she made an excuse to back out now, it would feel wrong. She stole a glance at Lin Chumu, whose expression hadn’t changed much. After waiting two seconds and realizing the hope of the other party proactively canceling the punishment was gone, she had no choice but to brace herself and lean in.

Isn’t it just biting an ear? I can do this!

Lu Chaoqing muttered a quick “Sorry,” then grabbed Lin Chumu’s shoulder and leaned in. Standing slightly on her tiptoes, her lips were only inches away from that jade-like, fair earlobe. She could feel her own inadvertently heavy breathing brushing against the ear canal, see the slight tremor of the shoulder, and notice the faint blush rising on the earlobe.

She leaned in, closed her eyes, and bit down on Lin Chumu’s earlobe.

A numbing electric current felt like it had flipped a strange switch. It began to spread through her capillaries, first occupying her entire heart and chest cavity, then attacking every part of her body, making her limbs go numb. The small, delicate earlobe was almost entirely enclosed in her mouth. This close posture was inevitably a bit ambiguous and strange; Lu Chaoqing’s hands were shaking, her mind filled only with the thought of when these ten seconds would end.

The shallow breaths constantly stimulated the already sensitive nerves of the ear. Lin Chumu’s mind went blank. For a moment, she didn’t even know if she should hold Lu Chaoqing back, as the girl was standing on her tiptoes in front of her and seemed a bit unstable.

Only after those ten seconds—which felt like an eternity—passed did she feel Lu Chaoqing release her earlobe. The girl immediately took a wet wipe to clean it for her.

She heard Lu Chaoqing’s soft apology.

“It’s okay.”

Lin Chumu liked cleanliness, but she wasn’t so obsessive that she had a phobia; otherwise, she wouldn’t have agreed to the game’s punishment. But just as she finished speaking, Lu Chaoqing explained seriously: “I felt like you’ve always disliked physical contact, which is why I said sorry. But if you want to enter the entertainment industry, you might need to change that habit to adapt better.”

After all, acting makes it impossible to avoid physical contact with others. Unless one only takes roles identical to their own personality, it wouldn’t work in the long run. Lu Chaoqing quietly patted her face to dissipate the excessive heat, then casually changed the subject: “Chuchu-jie, do you have a germophobia?”

Lin Chumu answered decisively that she didn’t.

“Then you…”

For someone without germophobia to reject physical contact with the same sex, there are usually only two possibilities. One is an inherent aversion to any intimacy—there’s likely a professional medical term for such a symptom. The other is extreme homophobia. Either way, Lu Chaoqing felt it was a bit troublesome.

A mix of sorrow and anger flashed through Lin Chumu’s eyes, quickly replaced by pure disgust. She pulled out her chair and sat back down, her hands clenched tight as if trying to forcibly break free from her previous resistance.

“Have you heard of a person named Fan Li?”

“Fan Li?”

Lu Chaoqing remembered from the original owner’s memory. She was a female celebrity who could only be considered a third-tier, bottom-of-the-barrel star in China. She was indeed quite pretty but had no representative works. She debuted in a third-lead role in an old-fashioned Mary Sue idol drama; her acting was merely mediocre, completely insufficient compared to those with professional training.

She had debuted in China for about three years without any progress, then went abroad to places like Europe and America to develop her career, where she made even less of a splash. She was a perfectly ordinary character in the entertainment circle.

“I lived with her.”

Seeing Lu Chaoqing’s eyes widen in instant disbelief, Lin Chumu pulled her lips into a dry smile. Her long lashes cast faint shadows under her eyes in the lamplight. Her expression was aloof; having detached herself from the emotion, it was as if she were narrating someone else’s story: “It’s not the kind of ‘living together’ you’re thinking of. In other words, we were roommates. But we were very close back then, essentially best friends.”

Fan Li was an arts student from the same year as her. Lin Chumu had graduated early, while Fan Li followed the normal process. They were in the same class in high school, but Fan Li didn’t get into a top-tier university like the Central Academy of Fine Arts; she went to a secondary school, though it was still respectable within the industry.

Since the two schools were close, they simply rented an apartment together. It was called “splitting the rent,” but in reality, Lin Chumu paid 70% and she paid 30%.

As someone who had already lived through life once in a previous world, Lin Chumu naturally had much more experience when she started over. That was why she could skip grades and reach a good position in EM so early. She was naturally willing to help a rare close friend; covering things like rent and living expenses was easy for her.

Initially, there was no “grudge born of a small favor,” and her relationship with Fan Li was as good as it could be. Fan Li knew her sexual orientation, but since Fan Li liked men, they didn’t interfere with each other and got along well. Naturally, she skipped over that part when talking to Lu Chaoqing.

The first argument happened after Fan Li came back crying from a social event, saying she had been a victim of attempted workplace sexual harassment. At the time, Lin Chumu was conducting an important transaction, which had fortunately just succeeded. When joy and sadness collided, her already sensitive mind was easily ignited.

Fan Li felt that Lin Chumu couldn’t fully understand her grief, and her thoughts began to wander to every little detail of their daily life. She started recounting actions that Lin Chumu had performed unintentionally but were now being overinterpreted. This made Lin Chumu go from feeling helpless to becoming increasingly angry.

“I will help you handle this matter,” Lin Chumu had said, suppressing her anger and patting the sobbing Fan Li on the shoulder. “Go rest first.”

Fan Li agreed verbally, but a thorn remained in her heart. She felt Lin Chumu was being completely perfunctory. Consequently, every small friction afterward was magnified infinitely. Finally, when Lin Chumu mentioned she was ready to enter the industry herself after building a solid foundation, Fan Li felt a massive sense of risk.

If Lin Chumu worked behind the scenes, she could use her position to help and protect her. But what about when Lin Chumu joined the industry?

Their appearances were equally good, Lin Chumu’s professional abilities were perhaps better than hers, and with her existing status and network at EM, her path after entering the industry would surely be smooth. Most importantly, they might become competitors and subjects of comparison. Lin Chumu could live a prosperous life even without the entertainment industry—but what about her?

She had no one behind her as support; she could only bet everything on this one chance.

When previous dissatisfaction piles up, it eventually becomes the fuse and excuse for an emotional explosion.

Just as Lin Chumu began negotiating for a good script, Fan Li acted.

She did some minor editing to the intimate photos of herself and Lin Chumu. When Lin Chumu’s crew was about to make an official announcement and various scalpers were getting ready to boost their sales, she leaked this “black material.”

Dating before entering the industry. Suspected of keeping a woman. Might bring capital into the production later. Carrying her own ‘capital’ (wealth/influence) status.

Someone who hadn’t officially entered the industry couldn’t cause a massive wave, but under manipulation, it still reached the lower ranks of the trending searches. A small group of people “ate the melon” (consumed the gossip), and the moment the word “capital” appeared, they began insulting and boycotting indiscriminately. Before the situation could escalate, the film crew decisively replaced the actress.

They had plenty of choices and wouldn’t insist on an untried actress if it meant carrying such a risk.

When Lin Chumu wanted to debunk the rumors, Fan Li had already parted ways and gone abroad. Without the other party’s confirmation, her side of the story appeared weak and powerless; Fan Li could even flip the script and muddy the waters further if she wanted to. Since the matter hadn’t fermented too much, EM suggested she choose a “cold treatment” approach.

Lin Chumu thus continued her role in management at EM with a calm heart. Ironically, after Fan Li went abroad, she failed to become famous. She seemingly tried to start a business but lost a lot of money; she wasn’t destitute, but she wasn’t doing well either.

In some ways, this woman named Fan Li was somewhat similar to Jiang Qishuang.

These people might get along well normally, but once competition and interests are involved, they find ways to blame others or worry about non-existent threats, using excuses to strike first as a “precaution.”

Fan Li used rumors to cut off Lin Chumu’s chance to enter the industry when Lin Chumu was doing her best to help her. Jiang Qishuang pretended to be a good teammate in front of Lu Chaoqing, but in reality, she was always dissatisfied and wanted to suppress her Center position.

They might not want to drive a person to a dead end, but they are willing to use their own means to trade for so-called “fairness” to balance their state of mind. Just as Lu Chaoqing’s family background was always a thorn in Jiang Qishuang’s heart, Lin Chumu was the same for Fan Li.

However, Lu Chaoqing felt that Jiang Qishuang was at least slightly better than Fan Li. After all, she hadn’t given Jiang Qishuang anything, whereas Fan Li had been living off Lin Chumu, and everything Lin Chumu had was earned entirely by herself—yet she was stabbed in the back by the person she helped.

She remembered the look of disdain on the face of the girl group from EM’s rival company when they discussed Lin Chumu during her first music show performance, and her heart felt heavy.

It wasn’t just the rumors about Lin Chumu; it was also the look of disgust and the scoffing on that person’s face when they mentioned homosexuality—Lu Chaoqing remembered it vividly even now. Although same-sex marriage legality was being put on the agenda, for many heterosexuals, a relationship between the same sex was inherently wrong—something they found hard to accept and felt the need to disparage.

Naturally, Lu Chaoqing had strictly rebutted them at the time.

Not just in private back then, but even in public, even if she were standing on a stage in the future, she would loudly tell everyone that this was not a mistake.

Unexpectedly, that day’s premonition became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

On the third day of filming, the hype for Inversion had already built up significantly. With three major “traffic” stars—Fang Qiuqi, Qiao Shuo, and Lu Chaoqing—leading the way, and with the quality guarantee of Ji Xiuyuan’s work, many passersby were curious about the theme. The official Weibo followers were growing by the tens of thousands daily.

Under the post announcing Lin Chumu’s promotional photos, some people initially recognized her as the cameo from the Flying Against the Wind MV. Later, someone dug up a very old, low-ranking trending search and started making a scene, though it was quickly buried by comments praising the “beautiful sister’s” looks.

Today, however, keywords related to Lin Chumu suddenly hit the trending searches again, intended to catch everyone off guard. Simultaneously, an army of paid internet trolls (Water Army) began spreading increasingly outrageous rumors in the comment section of that post, causing uninformed passersby to feel “turned off” and discouraged upon seeing them.

The rumor was posted by an Instagram account, allegedly belonging to a friend of Lin Chumu’s ex-girlfriend. It leaked the “ex-girlfriend’s” current terrible mood while in depression and added fuel to the fire by redrawing the content of that old trending search, depicting Lin Chumu as a woman who seduced a straight girl and then abandoned her.

It even claimed the “ex-girlfriend” currently had certain self-harm tendencies; it was bad enough that Lin Chumu forced her to flee to a foreign land, but now she even wanted to debut and rake in money in China. Such a moving accusation won the hearts of many passersby. Comments began to turn unfriendly, demanding that the film crew replace Lin Chumu.

Even the Weibo accounts and private messages of the other leads received “reminders” from fans and onlookers. According to the accusation, Lin Chumu had many tricks up her sleeve, and the author vaguely suggested that Lin Chumu might try to use various excuses to “whitewash” herself, attempting to block her counterattack. After all, those events from years ago were hard to clear without third-party witnesses. Combined with the “victim’s” tearful and detail-filled long post of grievances, even Lu Chaoqing might have believed it if she hadn’t heard Lin Chumu’s explanation beforehand.

After finishing her scenes with Fang Qiuqi that day, Lu Chaoqing logged into the Weibo account she hadn’t touched for days and posted a photo of the two of them from behind, wearing their costumes. The fiery red sunset stretched the girls’ silhouettes long. Xu Mulin squinted her eyes, shielding her forehead with her hand as she looked up, while Xiang Yunchen used the shadow to quietly lean her head toward her shoulder, her appearance carrying a mix of joy and nervousness.

@LuChaoqingSunny: [Image] Everyone, I don’t believe the ‘female lead’ in the rumors can be as good to ‘ship’ as my real CP with her.

No matter how it was interpreted, the audience—who were initially guessing whether there would be a “three women, one play” melodramatic plot—and Lu Chaoqing’s own fan group all exploded.

The top-rated comment, pushed to the front, was filled with thirty-three exclamation marks: “OUR XIAO QING HAS BEEN TURNED GAY??????…”