@Weekly New Entertainment V:
Breaking news! Renowned director Shen Peiping’s new drama 《The Disloyal Minister》 has officially started filming at Shudian Film Studio. The male and female leads are played respectively by popular young actor @Liu Qi and popular young actress @Lou Lixiao. What’s more, Movie Emperor @Jiang Sheli and young traffic star @Zhu Huai have joined the cast. A powerful lineup with godly visuals—this is also Movie Emperor Jiang’s first on-screen appearance after a year away from acting. What kind of visual feast will it bring us? Now that’s something to look forward to!
The blogger behind this post was an entertainment account with over three million followers, known for publishing these hidden-knife articles. It easily drew a crowd of melon-eating masses into a tearing frenzy in the comments.
[tsk tsk, the blogger deliberately tagged the movie emperor and Zhu Huai together. This instigation couldn’t be more obvious.]
[What’s wrong with Jiang Sheli? He won the International Best Actor award last year and suddenly vanished. After a year away, his first drama back is a traffic drama? And he’s not even the lead?]
[My gege might not be the lead, but at least he’s a heavyweight big boss. His billing order isn’t something a male supporting role N like Zhu Baby can be compared with. Who is the blogger trying to disgust?]
[Zhu Huai and Jiang Sheli in the same crew—I’ll write Zhu Huai’s company press release for them: “Zhu Huai earns Jiang Sheli’s appreciation; the great actor praises his diligence and looks forward to future collaboration!”]
[The pest Zhu who destroyed SYA is back on the scene?]
[Oh my god, Zhu Huai still dares to act with Jiang Sheli? Was being taught a lesson by Jiang fans two years ago not enough? He’s latching on again!]
[What? What happened two years ago? Asking for context!]
Reply: [Review of the Zhu fan vs. Jiang fan war two years ago → ]
Clicking the link led to a summary post that recounted, with pictures and text, the origins of the SYA disbandment and the fight between Jiang fans and Zhu fans.
Two years ago, an entertainment blogger launched a poll for “The Man the Entertainment Industry Most Wants to Sleep With.”
In that poll, Jiang Sheli dominated with over three million votes, leaving everyone else in the dust at a stable first place.
Second-place Zhu Huai was behind by over a million votes.
No need to explain what a million-vote gap meant. Moreover, unlike the organized, disciplined voting campaigns of Zhu fans, Jiang Sheli’s fans hadn’t organized anything at all. Those were purely spontaneous votes from passerby fans.
You could imagine how terrifying that was.
As the Visual Center of the idol group SYA, Zhu Huai was blazing hot, enjoying the reputation of number one idol, with his Weibo stats basically always holding first place. His fans never imagined they’d be taught a lesson by an ordinary poll.
At the time, some radical Zhu fans couldn’t stomach the gap. They swarmed Jiang Sheli’s Weibo and left sour, venomous comments, harsh in wording and foul in attitude.
Jiang fans were amused by the sight.
Jiang Sheli had debuted at fifteen and had been famous for eleven years straight. He’d won awards until his hands went soft. His latest film had even been nominated for Best Actor at the Country M Film Festival. He’d always stood at the top of the pyramid, looking down on the entertainment industry. This was the first time he’d been chased and cursed like this. Zhu fans really were a first.
But what storms hadn’t Jiang fans seen? Plenty of people in the industry used every trick to create topics with their gege. The more you engaged, the harder they pushed. They weren’t stupid—why hand out free publicity?
Angry as they were, they ignored this low-level clout-chasing.
Number one idol?
Ha.
Jiang fans would advise Zhu fans to first go find out how the “Year of Jiang Sheli” came to be. Zhu Huai, a little idol from a talent show without even a single respectable work to his name—did he deserve Jiang fans’ attention?
Keys are three for ten yuan. Does Zhu Huai deserve one? Not a single one.
Fighting him wasn’t poverty relief—it was disaster relief!
But what Jiang fans never expected was that this time, they’d miscalculated!
Some deep-pocketed financial backer bought the story of Zhu fans attacking Jiang Sheli’s Weibo to the number one spot on hot search, complete with a purple-red [Explosion] tag. Tags such as #Jiang Sheli Zhu Huai# occupied the top three hot searches, drawing all sorts of melon eaters to bow down. Marketing accounts seized every opening to report ambiguous, suggestive articles about the pair.
For a while, Zhu Huai and Jiang Sheli were like conjoined twins—where there was one, there was the other. A small group of CP fans with peculiar tastes even sprouted up in secret.
Some advertisers even came sniffing around, proposing that the two film a commercial together.
Jiang fans were first dumbfounded, then exploded: “Not ignoring you, and you get cocky, huh?!”
“Zhu Huai, you’re something else. Latching onto Jiang Sheli’s leg and sucking his blood as hard as you can!”
When tolerance is exhausted, there’s no need to endure any longer!
The two fanbases fully tore off any pretense of civility and went at each other with forty-meter blades.
One was the undefeated myth at the top of the entertainment industry; the other was a fresh, red-hot idol. The combat power of both fan armies was no joke. Wherever they passed, not a blade of grass survived. They fought their way onto Weibo hot search several times. Fans of other celebrities would hurriedly make way at the sight of these two fanbases, terrified of being caught in the crossfire.
But just as both sides had fought themselves bloody-eyed and the battle was at a deadlock, the SYA idol group that Zhu Huai belonged to suddenly announced their disbandment, detonating the entire entertainment industry.
SYA group fans and the members’ solo fans were caught off guard, clustering together in tears, demanding an official explanation everywhere.
Insiders revealed that the disbandment was caused by Zhu Huai bullying other members—he had violently fought with center Wei Feng and captain Liu Qi over resource allocation, ending up at the police station, and had even threatened company executives with suicide, making normal team activities impossible. This grand-scale fight was then used as ammunition, with veiled mockery of Zhu Huai for thinking too highly of himself and having no one in his eyes.
Supervisory departments even named and criticized him. State media published articles condemning the chaos in the entertainment industry.
SYA’s reputation collapsed overnight. Advertisers and investors, constrained by public opinion, withdrew funding and terminated contracts one after another. SYA could no longer generate money for the company. In the end, they had no choice but to announce disbandment. The tag #Zhu Huai Get Out of the Entertainment Industry# hung on hot search for an entire week. Netizens even gave him a nickname—Zhu Baby (Despicable).
As for the Jiang fans who had fought Zhu fans to the heavens, netizens crowned them warriors. There were even rumors that Jiang fans had actually gotten wind of things early, knowing Zhu Huai wasn’t a good bird. Otherwise, with so many people trying to stir topics with Jiang Sheli, why would they single out Zhu Huai?
Jiang fans were purifying the entertainment industry!
Jiang fans were dumbfounded.
“No, what nonsense are you people talking about? Don’t say that! We don’t have such great ambitions! We just wanted to teach that bloodsucker Zhu Huai a lesson!”
“…No wait, we’ve been used!!”
Jiang fans finally understood. Damn. Someone had used them as a knife, deliberately targeting Zhu Huai!
But even after understanding, they didn’t respond, nor did they sympathize.
It was true that Zhu Huai had sucked Jiang Sheli’s blood. It was also true that he had a rotten character. Being used as a knife was unpleasant, but it hadn’t cost them anything. Even the slight guilt they felt dissipated because of Zhu Huai’s bad character.
Not kicking him while he was down was their final mercy.
After that, Zhu Huai was chased and cursed by group fans and the other members’ solo fans for over half a year. Several fan club leaders led the mass unfollowing, and his career plummeted. Zhu Huai and his fans became synonymous with “toxic.”
This two-year-old post had been bumped back up and made the back rows of hot search once. After two years, Zhu Huai once again received the gift of a full-internet blackening.
–
In the green room of the 《The Disloyal Minister》 crew at Shudian Film Studio, Zhu Huai scrolled through Weibo, brows furrowed, silent.
Little Nan, his assistant, walked in carrying freshly bought fruit. Her gaze accidentally caught his phone screen, and she frowned. “Brother Huai, don’t look at that. What good can a marketing account write? This blogger posts divisive articles every few days. A dog’s mouth can’t spit out ivory.”
“Mm.” Zhu Huai obediently turned off his phone. He casually picked an orange from the bag, about to peel it, but Little Nan took it. “Your next scene is an intimate moment with Movie Emperor Jiang. Don’t eat an orange; it’ll leave a smell. Have a grape instead.”
Hearing this, Zhu Huai said simply, “Skip it. Give me the breath freshener.”
Little Nan found it and handed it over. “It’s just a bit of closeness, not a kiss scene. Why so serious?”
Zhu Huai’s eyes curved warmly, his tone gentle. “It’s our first collaboration. Even if I can’t leave a great impression, at least I shouldn’t leave any unpleasant memories. He’s also a senior. It’s only natural that I respect him.”
He was naturally good-looking. Back before his old idol group disbanded, he was the Visual Center: thick but soft brows, a straight, delicate nose, rosebud lips, and especially a pair of starry eyes that had charmed countless girls. When he smiled, two cute dimples appeared. Even Little Nan, who’d been with him a long time, couldn’t help but freeze for a moment.
Zhu Huai’s looks were truly beyond words. If the incident hadn’t happened, his path might have been entirely different.
Little Nan had quite a few Jiang fan friends. Two years ago, she hadn’t yet started working for Zhu Huai. When the incident happened, her friends had given her a full text play-by-play; she knew the fight better than most netizens.
She’d only started following Zhu Huai after SYA disbanded. When she was assigned to him as an assistant, she was nervous for a long time. But after two years of working together, Little Nan felt he wasn’t the awful person the internet made him out to be.
Zhu Huai was polite and gentle. Setting aside his intermittent shamelessness, he was occasionally a bit shy. When he smiled at you, there seemed to be stars in his eyes. He was also good to their staff, never losing his temper at crew members. He even remembered what day her period cramps hit and would give her two days off. This kind of subtle thoughtfulness was absolutely not an act.
The fan fight between Jiang fans and Zhu fans wasn’t the main cause of SYA’s disbandment, but there was no denying it had fueled the fire. That battle had hit Zhu Huai hard. Even now, he still hadn’t recovered.
“Brother.” Little Nan’s face showed concern as she asked carefully, “When you see Movie Emperor Jiang, will you be awkward?”
Zhu Huai knew what she meant. Instead of answering, he asked back, “Did I organize the fan fight?”
Little Nan shook her head. “No.”
“Did Jiang Sheli organize it?”
“…No.”
“Do Jiang Sheli and I have a blood feud?”
“No!”
“Then why would I be awkward?”
Little Nan was silent for a moment. “Since SYA disbanded, everyone thinks you two are like fire and water. They must think you hate the movie emperor to death. Now that you’re working together, a lot of people are waiting to see you embarrass yourself.”
Zhu Huai: “?”
“Waiting for you to tear the movie emperor apart, or watching you try to plaster yourself onto him again and fade out once more.”
Zhu Huai was stunned by the internet’s vivid imagination. It was a while before he said, “They really think highly of me. I’m already like this—where else do I have to fall?”
Not even the Zhu Huai of two years ago could touch a single hair on Jiang Sheli’s head, let alone the current Zhu Huai.
Besides, Zhu Huai had never even seen Jiang Sheli’s face. Forget arguing—they’d never had a chance to exchange glances. Where did the rumor of their incompatibility come from?
He was incredibly wronged!
“Now that I think about it, it’s really something.” Zhu Huai’s expression was calm as he counted on his fingers. “Defying the captain and the center, fighting into the police station, threatening executives with suicide, disrespecting seniors, arrogance with no one in my eyes, and being the first person to challenge Jiang Sheli. In terms of scandals, who has more than me? No wonder netizens think I have the guts.”
Little Nan: “…You sound kind of proud of that, huh?”
Zhu Huai gave an elegant eye roll. “Proud that I’m washed up?”
Just then, the green room door was knocked. A staff member poked their head in. “Brother Huai, Director Shen wants you out front to run lines with Brother Jiang. Try to make it in one take. It’s raining outside—if it gets heavier, we won’t be able to shoot this scene.”
“I’ll be right there.” Zhu Huai stood up, stopped joking with Little Nan, and tightened his black trench coat, covering the somewhat revealing red costume underneath.
Little Nan gave him a cheering gesture: Go for it!
