I support the termination
Huo Xi was negotiating the final stage adjustment with the choreography staff in the gymnasium when his manager Lei Bao showed him Sheng Qiao’s Weibo.
The truth was that he had already been aware of this contract for a while. Brother Bao was a veteran of Xingyao Media and Gao Meiling wasn’t able to hide these kinds of things from him. But when they had learn of it, they had both thought Sheng Qiao was just too stupid and an easy target for Gao Meiling to coax her into signing this unfair contract.
Now that they read this Weibo, they understood Sheng Qiao had been threatened. What kind of abnormal means? What kind of coercion?
Brother Bao sighed: “I used to say she was stupid and I did not expect her to be so courageous and directly sue them. The coercion clearly means Gao Meiling has some kind of blackmail on her but she still dared.”
Huo Xi stared at the Weibo post for a while and took out his phone.
Brother Bao was immediately alert: “What are you doing?”
Huo Xi: “I just sent her a message on WeChat.”
But Sheng Qiao did not reply after a long time. A staff member shouted to him: “Should we use white lights?”
Huo Xi opened his contact list and went out: “We will see in the afternoon.”
He dialed the phone and it rang several times before Sheng Qiao picked up. Her voice sounded as if nothing had happened, filled with the gentle voice she always used with him.
“Huo Xi!”
Huo Xi was silent for a while then quietly asked: “Are you okay?”
“I’m good. What are you doing?”
“I’m at the gymnasium.”
“I will be at your concert in a few days, I cannot wait!”
Wait, that was not the point of this call.
Huo Xi went back to his objective: “Are you prepared? Gao Meiling is not the kind to just give up.”
“I am, don’t worry!” She sounded in high spirits, not at all like he had imagined.
“That’s good.”
He did not say anything and was about to hang up when Sheng Qiao suddenly said: “Huo Xi, if…”
He waited for a while but when she did not continue, he asked: “If what?”
After a long time he heard her whisper: “If something bad about me comes out, would you… will you hate me?”
“What kind of bad?”
There was a shallow breathing in the receiver: “It’s nothing, you go back to work. Thank you for your concern, it makes me very happy.”
Her voice was not as lively as at the start of this conversation, like she had deflated like a balloon. Huo Xi looked at his dark screen and frowned.
After hanging up the phone, Sheng Qiao patted her face to cheer herself up and started appeasing her team of nine in her support group. They were all her true fans and seeing their idol had suffered so much grievance for so many years, they were all very angry and wanted to blow up Xingyao Media’s building. Even Wang Zi who had already known about it for a long time.
Sheng Qiao was amused and touched. She soothed them one by one then assigned their next work: “Controlling and reviewing is the most important thing right now. All marketing accounts and comments under Xingyao Media should be checked out and any illicit material should be reported immediately. Even if we are the miserable ones, we should still be reasonable.”
She sent them a list of topics:
#Ask Xingyao Media to immediately stop infringements and terminate the contract#
#Sheng Qiao, the most miserable female celebrity in history#
#I will give you 20,000 yuan to return Sheng Qiao to me#
#Sheng Qiao’s contract with Xingyao Media shocked the entertainment circle#
…
“Publish them. Xingyao should waste time on them. They also have a lot of money and have squeezed Qiao Qiao for so many years, they can spend a bit.”
After so many years of fandom, Sheng Qiao was good at manipulating the hot searches. Between her team and the hacking skills of Wang Zi, even if she did not have a huge fan base, it would be pretty easy. Moreover, her initial Weibo post had gotten the attention of the whole network and the number of clicks from onlookers had expanded rapidly.
Sheng Qiao was working hard and she felt she was competent as her own fan club’s president.
The phone rang; it was Gao Meiling. Because of the timing, Sheng Qiao had no doubt on why she was calling. She smiled and answered: “Hello Sister Gao, how are you?”
Gao Meiling was furious: “Sheng Qiao, what did you do?!”
“What do you mean?” She opened WeChat on her computer and slowly took a couple of screenshots.
“You deleted the photos? How did you do it?”
“I wouldn’t worry about that.” She sent the two screenshots of the chat log. “Sister Gao, I just sent you two pictures. Take a look.”
The breathing on the other end stopped and no one spoke for a long time. Sheng Qiao suspected Gao Meiling was very mad.
She then heard a laugh: “I really underestimated you. I thought you were just a little white rabbit, who knew I was raising a tiger.”
“You didn’t. I would not dare to be a tiger, I am still a white rabbit. But the rabbit bites when it’s anxious.”
Gao Meiling sneered: “You might have deleted the original but didn’t you think about the fact I might have a printed copy?”
Sheng Qiao did not care: “So what? If you leak the photos, I will leak the chat history. Tit for tat.”
Gao Meiling knew she was helpless right now. The artist that had always allowed to be manipulated and abused had unknowingly gone out of control.
There wasn’t any use in saying more and she hung up angrily. Turning around, the company executives were glaring at her.
“Didn’t you say you would deal with it?”
“It’s just about the contract. With Sheng Qiao’s reputation, no one knows where the public opinion will fall. Let’s start the meeting first.”
******
After hanging up, Sheng Qiao’s mood was soaring. This was kind of exciting.
She looked at her phone and the news of her contract termination was everywhere. Even discussions on Weibo were full of enthusiasm. Most netizens sympathized with her and believed Xingyao Media’s contract was indeed too unfair and they should let her cancel it.
But there were also people who were just curious about the so-called abnormal methods and they were speculation about what had happened to prompt Sheng Qiao to sign.
After a while, Xingyao Media responded to the prosecution:
@XingyaoMediaV: In response to the termination litigation of Ms Sheng Qiao, an artist of Xingyao Media, the company has formally responded to the lawsuit and will defend its rights through legal means. We solemnly declare that the company did not use abnormal means to coerce Ms Sheng Qiao into signing the contract. The contract was signed by both parties. Ms Sheng Qiao is requested to immediately stop the spread of false rumors and the fabrication of facts or we will initiate legal actions.
As soon as the message went out, people changed their opinion. Sheng Qiao said the agency had used abnormal means but what were those? How come in such a big industry she was the only one fooled?
Now she was saying Xingyao Media was being unfair but who knew if she did not owe 200 millions prior to the contract.
What was more, Sheng Qiao’s reputation had been really bad all these years. She was known as lazy and it had been less than a year since her scandal with Huo Xi. Had the company also forced her to act like that?
Sheng Qiao was hated with no fan base; she had more haters than supporters. With such a message from Xingyao Media, the public opinion changed rather quickly. She was miserable but wasn’t Xingyao Media even more?
The Xingyao Media team had personally gone to the court and smashed money; the onlookers’ thoughts were already quite biased and the sympathy Sheng Qiao had accumulated quickly disappeared. And because Sheng Qiao did not have any friends in the circle except for Zhong Shen, Fu Ziqing and the rest of the drama crew, there were too few public figures willing to speak out to support her.
These past years, the Internet had forced people to not just stand up at will. If something went wrong, it was to turn around and people would easily collapse.
Within a few minutes, Huo Xi’s fans, who were currently beaming in joy and enjoying the drama, noticed Huo Xi was online.
Huo Xi seldom posted Weibo, unlike other celebrities who had a dedicated team to run it. He would occasionally post a commercial or a selfie if he was in a good mood and it was enough to make his fans happy for half a year.
Right this moment, the news of Sheng Qiao’s termination and lawsuit were everywhere on the screen. Netizens agreed she was indeed miserable but it was not enough for Huo Xi’s fans to feel sympathy. They had scolded her for so many years, the hatred made it impossible for them to just change their mind like that. Furthermore, the water armies contracted by Xingyao Media were still working their magic and kept reminding them about Sheng Qiao harassment of Huo Xi. As soon as his fans thought about it, any trace of pity that had somewhat emerged was gone.
But when they saw Huo Xi’s online status, fans suddenly had a bad feeling.
Baby?
Don’t do what we think you will!
Stop it!
Promise us you are just on to watch the drama!
Then a minute later, Huo Xi reposted Sheng Qiao’s Weibo with a caption:
@Huo XiV: I support the termination.
His fans started crying. Their idol was so kind, how was there someone so kind in this world? Even though Sheng Qiao had been in the middle of so many scandals he still helped her when she was in trouble. Where did this little angel come from?
They could cry, get angry or just be unwilling, now that their idol had spoken, how could they not support it too?
So Hu Xi’s fans took action. They controlled about half of the entertainment circle’s traffic and the Weibo’s staff were almost crying. Let alone changing netizens’ opinion, people would stop to just watch and start participating too.
In the past few years, Sheng Qiao had used Huo Xi to raise her popularity and everyone knew about it. Who did not know how much his fans hated the little celebrity but couldn’t get rid of her? Besides, they also were from the same agency. If Huo Xi supported her, didn’t it mean he went against them? There was no gain in helping her.
And wasn’t this the first time Huo Xi publicly interacted with Sheng Qiao in the past few years?
What was going on?
The entertainment circle was really messy.
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