Chapter 103: Trending Searches

Cheng Ye was building a fire in the courtyard in the middle of the night.

After so many years, his skill at building a wood fire hadn’t diminished; the flames were quickly blazing.

He scrubbed the large iron pot the old man kept in the yard, filled it with water, and set it to boil for Jiang Shi’s bath.

Jiang Shi sat on a chair, grasping a handful of pebbles, throwing them at Cheng Ye whenever he felt annoyed.

Cheng Ye knew he was at fault and dared not protest, silently making the fire burn hotter.

Jiang Shi said, “Fine, you’re good. Should I start calling you ‘Actor Cheng’ from now on?”

‘Actor Cheng’ tossed a few sweet potatoes into the stove and quietly shuffled closer to Jiang Shi, adopting the demeanor of an honest man.

Jiang Shi reached out and ruffled his hair. “Tell me, what’s going on?”

“Li Zong’s goal isn’t money; he’s entirely focused on ruining our relationship. I received the photo I showed him on my way here. If I had received the photo while still in Jiangcheng, considering the flight time, I would have arrived around the same time he came to see you.”

“I guessed he was planning something, so I decided to play along.”

Jiang Shi shifted his posture. “You mean, he wanted us to have a misunderstanding?”

The fire poker in Cheng Ye’s hand was clanking loudly.

If Cheng Ye hadn’t guarded Jiang Shi like the apple of his eye and rushed back immediately after Gao Xinhu’s warning, the plan would likely have succeeded.

“I left in a hurry, and no one knew. When I got the message later, I sensed something was wrong. I had Chen Lang impersonate me and asked the director to keep him busy, so he had no idea I arrived early.”

Jiang Shi was silent.

No wonder Cheng Ye had asked everyone at dinner not to mention his arrival.

He watched Cheng Ye poke at the ground with the poker as if it were Li Zong and asked him, “If you hadn’t arrived early and actually saw the scene as he planned, would you have believed me?”

“Of course,” Cheng Ye answered definitively.

Jiang Shi raised an eyebrow. “That certain?”

Cheng Ye was inexplicably confident. “He’s not as handsome as me, not as tall, and not as rich. He’s just a pathetic drama queen. If you liked him, I’d look down on you.”

Jiang Shi: “…”

Jiang Shi said slowly, “But he’s younger than me. You know, ‘fresh meat’?”

Cheng Ye replied, “I’m younger than you too, Brother Jiang Shi.”

Jiang Shi couldn’t stand him calling him ‘Brother Jiang Shi’ and reached out to cover his mouth. “President Cheng, do your employees know you act like this in private?”

Cheng Ye mumbled, “In private, they only call me ‘Cheng the Exploiter’ and ‘Stingy Cheng.'”

Being a CEO like Cheng Ye was hopeless.

Jiang Shi let go of him and asked, “So, what do we do next?”

“He’s very good at stirring up trouble, isn’t he? We’ll fight fire with fire.”

---

Jiang Shi didn’t have a scene the next day either, and he was looking forward to sleeping in, but he was woken up by Liu Heping’s call just as dawn broke.

There was still warmth on the pillow; Cheng Ye must have left not long ago. Jiang Shi fumbled around and finally grabbed his phone.

“What’s with the early morning call? Has the sky fallen?”

Liu Heping screamed like a chicken. “The sky really has fallen! Jiang Shi, you’re trending!”

Jiang Shi yawned. “So what? When am I not trending?”

He was known for being authentic and blunt in the entertainment industry, too lazy to even smile at those he disliked. For years, he had a mix of fans and haters, and every event he attended was destined to cause a stir. Trending was an everyday occurrence.

“This time is different…” Liu Heping choked. “It’s about Li Zong. Did you get involved with him?”

Jiang Shi shot up in bed, instantly wide awake. “No, Brother Liu, don’t talk nonsense. Cheng Ye will eat people.”

Liu Heping: “…”

He managed to speak. “What is this trend about?”

Jiang Shi had just woken up and knew nothing about the trending topics. The Wi-Fi in the room was slow, so he hung up, grabbed a jacket, and walked outside.

Cheng Ye, unable to sit still, was plowing the field for the old man. The old cow moved slowly, still craning its neck to reach the grass nearby while plowing.

Jiang Shi opened the trending list. His name was everywhere, so much that he almost didn’t recognize the characters for “Jiang Shi.”

Gao Xinhu was probably also awakened by Liu Heping. With his bed-head, he squatted in the yard with Jiang Shi to analyze the trending topics.

They started reviewing the timeline.

The first to explode was a clip of Jiang Shi beating Li Zong—a clear, uncovered, high-definition video that completely captured the scene.

#JiangShiAssaultsPerson#

Jiang Shi’s anti-fans were clearly celebrating.

[See? I told you people like Jiang Shi would collapse sooner or later. Does he really think he’s the law? Hitting people just like that.]

[Bullying people so blatantly, what must he be like in private?]

[Trash artist, get out of the entertainment industry!]

His fans were still trying to defend him.

[We don’t know the full story, so no comment. Who knows what happened? It’s just a video. The marketing accounts can say whatever they want.]

[Given how lazy our guy is, like a cat, he’s too tired to even look at people twice. If he actually hit someone, you should be asking what monstrous thing that person did to provoke him.]

The news broke in the middle of the night, when most people were sleeping, and only netizen activity was high.

After much argument that yielded no result, people began to dig into who this Li Zong was.

The digging unearthed explosive news.

First, a photo, supposedly posted by a crew member (the same one Cheng Ye received), surfaced. The scene didn’t look like they had a bad relationship, leading netizens to suspect some kind of conflict.

Then, a popular exposé blogger with over a million followers entered the fray. He posted a vague emoji, said nothing, and directly dumped two photos.

One showed Jiang Shi and Li Zong sitting across from each other in a hotel. Jiang Shi was smiling while handing over a piece of paper (a cheque), and Li Zong looked upset.

The other was a blurry photo of the room Jiang Shi was staying in. Only two figures were visible very close to each other, but the person squatting was clearly Li Zong, and the shadow on the wall showed Li Zong with his head bowed, seemingly bowing, a very suggestive action.

#JiangShiSponsoringLiZong#

#JiangShiHomosexual#

#JiangShiRelationship#

All were followed by a shocking, bright-red “EXPLOSIVE” tag.

Gao Xinhu was close to tears. “Darn it, I just went to sleep. How did the world change when I woke up?” He turned to Jiang Shi. “Little Cousin, what have you been doing behind my back?”

Jiang Shi kicked him. “Get lost.”

He glanced at Cheng Ye, who was still plowing, and put his phone away.

Gao Xinhu was frantic. “No, Cousin, you just put your phone away? Aren’t you going to do anything?”

Jiang Shi was perfectly calm. “Do what? There’s nothing I can do. I can only wait for Brother Liu to spend money to remove the trending topics.”

Gao Xinhu: “…”

That’s true, but don’t you think you’re a little too calm?

Cheng Ye wiped the sweat off his brow and walked over, asking Jiang Shi, “Trending?”

Jiang Shi gave a simple “Mhm.”

Seeing their reactions, Gao Xinhu finally understood that he was the clown all along.

Wearing his clown mask, he went to fetch breakfast for Jiang Shi.

Jiang Shi looked at his retreating back, then turned to Cheng Ye. “Wait a little longer?”

Cheng Ye “Mhm’d” in agreement.

The waiting lasted until Li Zong’s Weibo post appeared.

Instead of clarifying, his words sounded like an indirect admission.

[If anyone has any grievances, direct them at me. Teacher Jiang Shi is a very good person, and he treats me well. Don’t scold him.]

Several top comments followed:

[Blink if you’re being threatened.]

[Translation: Although we have a sugar daddy relationship, it’s consensual. Don’t bother my sugar daddy. Let me bear the anger of the netizens alone.]

[How much is Jiang Shi paying you a month?]

Liu Heping was so angry he wanted to butcher Li Zong.

“What does he mean? What does he mean by those words?! I’m going to kill this bastard today!”

Jiang Shi comforted him. “It’s alright, it’s alright… No need to get upset over someone like that.”

Liu Heping immediately grew suspicious. “Why are you so calm? You’re not really involved with him, are you?”

Jiang Shi said, “Look at his face, and then look at mine. Who looks like they’d be sponsoring whom?”

“…”

“Alright, don’t worry about the rest. Leave it to me.”

“What are you going to do?”

Jiang Shi did something he had always wanted to do.

He posted a photo showing two hands, one dark and one light, wearing rings, stacked on top of each other, with the caption:

[Had a partner for many years, the relationship is great. The other half is very handsome. Ugly men, stay away.]

The lighter hand in the photo was easily recognizable; Jiang Shi’s hands had even been screenshotted by fans for collections. The darker hand had a large frame, even bigger than Jiang Shi’s. At a glance, it was definitely not a woman’s.

Instantly, the topic #JiangShiHomosexual# was pushed to the top again.

After posting, Jiang Shi felt completely relieved.

Since entering the industry, Liu Heping had been constantly lecturing him on what he couldn’t do. He was tired of it.

He was an actor, not an idol who relied on fans for his living. If he couldn’t even make his own partner public, what was the point of all the glory?

At worst, he’d retire.

Jiang Xue opened a vegetable stall; he could go work as a cashier there.

Xinghui’s public relations team seemed to have received a signal. They had only symbolically suppressed the long string of trending topics before, but as soon as Jiang Shi made his post, they immediately took action.

The PR department released a video. The audio was muted, but it showed Li Zong constantly knocking on the door outside the house. He stood by the door for over ten minutes, glued to the side, seemingly begging the person inside.

Finally, the door opened, revealing Jiang Shi’s face.

The camera angle was tricky, but through the small window by the door, the scene inside was faintly visible.

The two first stood face-to-face, and then Li Zong squatted down. In the video, he subtly shifted his position, and the shadows on the wall overlapped, creating the image seen in the trending photos. But in reality, there was at least a meter of distance between them.

Then, Li Zong stood up, stumbled toward Jiang Shi, and Jiang Shi gave him a helping hand.

Afterward, the celebrities who had dinner with Jiang Shi yesterday started speaking out.

[I’ve met Teacher Jiang’s boyfriend. He’s very handsome and treats Teacher Jiang very well. Some people shouldn’t try to stir up trouble.]

[Are you saying Teacher Jiang’s boyfriend arrived at 5 PM, had dinner with us, and then, while sleeping with him, Teacher Jiang secretly met a small-time celebrity that same night right in front of him?]

The post included a photo of everyone eating at a table, with a tall, pixelated man sitting next to Jiang Shi. Their posture was intimate.

[If they were sleeping together, why wasn’t his so-called boyfriend in the video?]

Jiang Shi replied:

[He’s shy and doesn’t like strangers. I told him to escape out the window.]

[Then what about Jiang Shi hitting someone?]

Jiang Shi replied again:

[Hitting him was purely a personal grudge. You can scold me for lacking manners, but you can’t say I did it out of love turning to hate. I only feel hate for him, no love.]

[Then what about the sponsorship? A cheque was even given. Was that fake too?]

Jiang Shi seemed ready to quit after this round.

[Me giving money means sponsorship? With a face like his, I wouldn’t take him even if he came for free. I gave him money just to make him stay far away from me.]

The internet instantly turned into chaos, a complete mess of arguments.

Liu Heping was practically kneeling to Jiang Shi.

“Ancestor, I’ll call you ancestor, alright? What exactly do you want to do? Do you still want to work in this industry?”

Jiang Shi said, “It’s fine whether I stay or not. The entertainment industry is just a job for me. If I can’t do this one, I’ll find another. No one dies from retiring.”

Liu Heping: “…”

The worry he had carried for so many years finally died.

Compared to Jiang Shi’s direct confrontation with netizens, what Li Zong did was truly shocking.

[So, without that video, even if Jiang Shi explained, he would have been unable to fully clear his name, and the unclear relationship would have been confirmed.]

[No, what’s with his ambiguous statement? Is he trying to cause trouble? Who is he anyway? Untraceable in the industry, just a newcomer, yet he’s trying to link himself with the hugely popular Jiang Shi?]

[Who says being infamous isn’t a type of fame.]

[Stop pretending to be dead, come out and explain clearly.]

Bang!

A phone was violently smashed on the floor. The next second, it rang.

The name Huo Ji flashed on the shattered screen.

Li Zong wiped his face, staring gloomily at the letters for a long time before slowly bending down to pick up the phone.

“Huo… Brother Huo…”

“Is this what you meant by ‘do as I said’?”

“I’m sorry…” he mumbled. “I did do as you said, but I didn’t know Cheng Ye had set up a camera. This was a complete set-up…”

“Useless! You can’t even handle a simple task!”

Li Zong curled his lips. “Don’t we still have one more move?”

The other end was silent for a moment. “Even if we can’t separate them, I will ruin Cheng Ye’s reputation.”

Li Zong hung up. The old fan whirred above his head, making a creaking sound. He took the phone and left the room.

Outside the window, the parasol trees shook their emerald-green leaves. A woman came out of the kitchen with a bowl of soup. She looked at Li Zong’s expression, wiping her hands carefully. “Xiao Zong, Mama made some soup. Don’t be angry…”

Li Zong sat down to eat. His back was very straight. His somewhat delicate face was shadowed with gloom, his eyes dark.

The woman sat beside him.

Although they were mother and son, her gaze toward Li Zong always held fear, mixed with dependence. She only dared to speak after he put down his chopsticks.

“Your father over there…”

Li Zong’s chewing paused. “Huo Ji stopped his medication today. If he doesn’t get the medicine, I don’t know how many more days he can wait.”

Gao Lan instantly panicked upon hearing this. She reached out to grab Li Zong’s hand. “Then… what should we do? If we don’t take care of him, will your father’s relatives come to bother us?”

“Bother us about what?” Li Zong pulled his hand away. “They should be content that we took care of him for so many years.”

“Instead of that…” He looked at his birth mother. “You should be worried about something else.”

Gao Lan was startled. “What?”

Li Zong gave a small laugh. “Your precious son. What if he finds out what you did back then? Will he easily forgive you?”

Gao Lan’s eyes were burned by the smile in his eyes. “What do you mean… Didn’t you tell me to…”

“I told you? Mom, you’re hilarious. How old was I back then? What could I have told you to do? Do you think he’d believe you if you told him?”

He then reached out and took Gao Lan’s hand, his voice filled with faint pity and worry. “I know it hasn’t been easy for you, but Mom, since I started college, I’ve been bearing most of my adoptive father’s medical expenses. We promised them they’d support me through college, and I’d take care of him in his old age. We can’t break our promise, can we?”

“Because of this, Cheng Ye kicked me out of his company, and now I’ve lost my job with the crew because of him. I’ve done everything I can.”

Hearing the name “Cheng Ye” suddenly, Gao Lan’s face instantly went white, and she began to tremble uncontrollably.

Li Zong acted as if he didn’t notice.

His voice was gentle.

“I’ve done everything I can, Mom. Now it’s your turn to do something for me and for this family.”

---

Jiang Shi’s incident became quite a big deal. The biggest impact wasn’t the assault, but his public coming out.

Although attitudes are much more open now, homosexuality is still not the mainstream. Almost all of Jiang Shi’s jobs were suspended, and even the crew stopped filming. Exhausted, Liu Heping gave him a long vacation.

He warned Jiang Shi, “You must stay off the internet, especially social media. Don’t go look. I’ll inform you if anything important happens.”

Jiang Shi obediently didn’t look. He also didn’t have much time to look, as he went to see someone: Li Xuelan, Huo Ji’s fiancée. With their wedding only half a month away, Jiang Shi finally met her at a highly private coffee shop.

She was gentle-looking and gentle-natured. She was out to look at custom wedding jewelry and wasn’t angry about being forcibly “invited” by Jiang Shi.

“I recognize you…” She smiled. “If you wanted to see me, you could have just come to my house. Why go to such lengths?”

Jiang Shi pushed the coffee he had ordered toward her. “It was an emergency measure. Coming to your house would draw too much attention, so I had to resort to this.”

Li Xuelan took a sip of coffee, lowering her eyes. “What do you want with me? Huo Ji?”

“Do you know about my relationship with him?”

“I know a little, but not much.”

“I don’t know exactly what you know, but you should know that he is a homosexual, right?”

Li Xuelan’s shoulders stiffened upon hearing this. Then, she gave a bitter smile. “What difference does it make if I know or don’t know? My relationship with him is just an exchange of benefits. In this marriage, I am the least important person.”

“But Miss Li…” Jiang Shi said. “This is your whole life. Are you truly content to hand over the rest of your life to such a scumbag?”

“You are a person. You have life, thoughts, and freedom. You are not a puppet to be controlled. You should have the right to choose.”

“Don’t ruin your beautiful life for the sake of such a person.”

With that, he placed a note in front of Li Xuelan with his phone number on it. “I can help you, but the choice is yours.”

Li Xuelan stared at the note for a long time, eventually tucking it away.

Just a few days after he met Li Xuelan, a video suddenly spread across the entire internet.

The woman in the video looked very worn and aged, her face covered in wrinkles. She seemed scared of the camera, her gaze always downcast as she spoke.

She cried, haltingly recounting a past event.

“He beat me, grabbed my hair and beat me. Broke my hands, broke my legs. Neighbors tried to stop him, but when they left, he beat me even harder.”

“I wanted to run, dreamed of running, but how could I, a woman with two children, run away? The younger one was five or six, the older one was in elementary school. The older one was like his father; the younger one was like me.”

“Cheng Jianbin was good to the older one because he resembled him. The younger one was like me, and he was premature, weak, and couldn’t help with work. Cheng Jianbin found him unlucky. He beat me, and he beat the child too.”

“He’s not human. How could he lay a hand on such a small child? A dog ate his heart. So, I took my younger son and ran away when he was drunk. The older one… the older one grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go. He even tried to call Cheng Jianbin out.”

“I knelt and begged him, begged him to let me go.”

“He is my child after all, a piece of my own flesh. I couldn’t bear to leave him, so I secretly went back after I settled down.”

“And then…”

The woman covered her face and sobbed.

“I left with his younger brother, and Cheng Jianbin took all his anger out on him. He couldn’t take it anymore, so…”

A reporter pressed on off-camera.

“So what?”

The woman’s lips trembled. “So… he killed his own father.”

“I saw it with my own eyes. He killed his dad. He gave him poisoned wine. He put pesticide in the wine. He wanted him dead.”

“I know he resents his mother and me. If he has any不满, he should take it out on me. I’m willing to bear everything. Zong’er knows nothing. He was only a five-year-old child back then. He’s his own brother. He shouldn’t do this to him…”

“Cheng Ye… Li Zong is your brother…”

The interview abruptly ended.

Buzz—Jiang Shi’s mind went instantly blank.

He didn’t even bother to change his shoes, grabbing his phone and rushing out.

Liu Man called him.

“The company entrance is surrounded by reporters. Don’t take the main entrance if you come here.”

Jiang Shi buckled his seatbelt and asked Liu Man, “What’s the situation now?”

Liu Man’s voice was filled with bitterness. “How would I know what the situation is? The reporters don’t want the truth. They’re shouting for ‘Brother Cheng’ to come out, practically calling him a murderer to his face.”

“Where is Cheng Ye?”

“Brother Cheng is in the office. No one dares to ask about this. The entire company is panicking.”

Then, Liu Man cursed.

“Those two disgusting people, they didn’t do enough damage to Brother Cheng when he was little. Now that he’s finally escaped the past, finally has a new life, the company just landed a massive contract, just developed a new product, just…”

“It’s gone. It’s all gone. Everything is gone.”

“Are they trying to destroy his life forever…?”

Jiang Shi clenched his phone, swallowing the bile that rose in his throat.

“Wait for me. I’m coming.”

Five minutes later, Liu Man said.

“Don’t bother. The police took Brother Cheng away.”