Chapter 150: Deep-Seated Scheming
Since it was only for a minor role, the casting requirements for Qin Linlin were not high, and his screen time wasn't much either. After the first two or three days of filming the kidnapper plotline, Lu Muyang's scenes were finished.
After Lu Muyang's scenes were completed, he left. Yin Chengjue didn't have a strong impression of him. If Fei Zhengqi hadn't mentioned that this person appeared in "Blood Mist" and clearly pointed out the role he played, Yin Chengjue wouldn't have remembered him at all.
Yin Chengjue simply couldn't figure it out: this Lu Muyang only made a brief appearance in "Blood Mist," so how did he become entangled with Rong Yu, even to the point of having Chang Fengyuan arrange for someone to kidnap Rong Yu?
Regardless of the relationship between Lu Muyang and Chang Fengyuan, just looking at his interactions with Rong Yu, they only shared a few scenes together.
Because this matter concerned Rong Yu, Yin Chengjue couldn't sleep anymore. He directly sent an email asking Fei Zhengqi how he knew about this.
Fei Zhengqi didn't hide it either, directly stating that it was because the Fei family, before their decline, had once sponsored that orphanage. Seeing that Lu Muyang had a good appearance, they selected him and sponsored his university education.
Who could have predicted the unpredictability of life? The Fei family fell from grace. Fei Zhengqi, finding no one else to turn to, went to Lu Muyang, who was already in a debuted group and at the peak of his popularity at the time.
Actually, Fei Zhengqi's request back then wasn't high, he just wanted to borrow a month's living expenses from Lu Muyang, so that he could have time to find a job to support himself.
But Lu Muyang chose that moment to turn hostile. Not only did he kick Fei Zhengqi out, but he also preemptively spread online that the Fei family's past sponsorship of him had ulterior motives.
Because of Lu Muyang's distortion of the truth, Fei Zhengqi's job search at that time became even more difficult. No position was willing to take him, someone entangled with scandals and facing one-sided online backlash.
Thus, Fei Zhengqi at that time had no choice but to accept the "olive branch" Qi Le threw his way and lived a life like a puppet for several years.
That Lu Muyang wasn't destined for a fortunate life either. Not long after the group debuted, it disbanded for certain reasons. His presence was like a flash in the pan, fleeting. In the entertainment industry, overflowing with handsome men and beautiful women, Lu Muyang soon lost his footing.
It wasn't until Qin Linlin's casting for "Blood Mist" this time that Lu Muyang reappeared in the public eye.
Fei Zhengqi held a deep grudge against Lu Muyang. So, after Fei Zhengqi had the chance to escape Qi Le's control, the first thing he did was to look for Lu Muyang.
Unexpectedly, this search led him to witness Lu Muyang's dealings with Chang Fengyuan. Fei Zhengqi didn't recognize Chang Fengyuan at first; after all, who would have thought that the boy who used to cry in the corner of the orphanage would be the illegitimate son of the Chang family?
If Fei Zhengqi, who was tailing and following them, hadn't overheard Lu Muyang and Chang Fengyuan mention it in their conversation, he really wouldn't have remembered this detail.
So it seemed Fei Zhengqi had a particular knack for this sort of thing; no matter where he went, he always managed to uncover useful intelligence.
Most importantly, he actually followed and tracked Lu Muyang all the way to his home without being discovered. In the end, he even successfully slipped into the home where Lu Muyang currently lived, opened Lu Muyang's computer, and found their plans to kidnap Rong Yu and extort Yin Chengjue inside.
Fei Zhengqi, afraid that Yin Chengjue wouldn't believe him, even took photos of that content and sent them to Yin Chengjue.
These were screenshots of messages from the computer version of WeChat. The content of the screenshots was about how Lu Muyang kept NG because of Rong Yu during their scenes together, which made Lu Muyang feel extremely frustrated.
Yin Chengjue thought about it carefully and realized that Lu Muyang did indeed frequently NG, forcing Rong Yu to perform the same scenes over and over again. Especially that kidnapping scene, even the child actor could get into character, but it was precisely this Lu Muyang who either forgot his lines, had the wrong expression, or sometimes even made huge mistakes, forcing the child actor to perform scene after scene with him, an adult.
And yet, in that particular scene, the child actor was bound with tape, and Rong Yu was tied to a chair with both ropes and tape, with only his eyes and eyebrows able to move. Lu Muyang, who played the kidnapper, had the easiest role, but he was the one who kept making all sorts of mistakes.
Rong Yu and the child actor accompanied him through take after take without voicing any dissatisfaction. The makeup artist had to do touch-ups countless times, wasting who knows how much makeup, before that kidnapping scene was finally completed.
After filming that scene, both Rong Yu and the child actor had bruises on their hands and bodies from the restraints.
Who would have thought that Rong Yu didn't even mind Lu Muyang constantly forgetting his lines and NGing, but Lu Muyang instead secretly blamed Rong Yu in his heart, even feeling that it was Rong Yu who caused him to forget his lines and actions, leading to him being scolded by Director Chen.
And this person, unhappy but not saying it directly, acted very humble and remorseful to their face, but then turned around and even arranged a kidnapping and extortion plot.
Moreover, he didn't choose to do it right after "Blood Mist" started airing, because it wasn't hugely popular then and still needed Rong Yu himself to do various promotions. Now that "Blood Mist" was halfway through its run and many people knew about the series, and Rong Yu and the main cast didn't need to run around promoting it everywhere, Lu Muyang developed a desire for revenge.
Fei Zhengqi not only took screenshots but also recorded a video. During the recording, he clicked on the chat avatar, and the WeChat ID and information were indeed Lu Muyang's.
Because he had acted in a supporting role, Lu Muyang was also added to the main "Blood Mist" WeChat group. Yin Chengjue could see it with a simple search.
Fei Zhengqi: I just found these messages from Lu Muyang's home today. Judging from the content of their chat, the kidnapping failed, right? Is Rong Yu okay?
Yin Chengjue: He was injured, nothing serious.
Fei Zhengqi: It's good that he's fine. This Lu Muyang is very cunning. Before, he used this honest appearance to deceive my parents. My parents really treated him like their own son, but they ended up raising n white-eyed wolf.
[白眼狼 (báiyǎnláng): lit. white-eyed wolf; fig. an ungrateful person who bites the hand that feeds them.]
Fei Zhengqi: That Chang Fengyuan is no good person either. The fact that he can secure his footing in the Chang family means he must have plenty of tricks up his sleeve. I don't think he's helping Lu Muyang purely for something as trivial as love, even though I did manage to take photos of them kissing.
Yin Chengjue: So you're saying Chang Fengyuan and Lu Muyang are lovers?
Fei Zhengqi: It appears so at the moment.
Yin Chengjue: So, you want revenge on Lu Muyang, but because you fear Chang Fengyuan's methods, you want me to deal with Chang Fengyuan?
Fei Zhengqi: Don't you want to?
Yin Chengjue: Actually, what I really want to know is, why do they think that kidnapping Rong Yu means they can threaten me?
Fei Zhengqi: I don't know about that. Maybe they think Rong Yu is the artist your company is heavily promoting, so extorting you would yield greater profits.
Looking at the message Fei Zhengqi sent, Yin Chengjue reluctantly believed his explanation.
Actually, making trouble for Chang Fengyuan wasn't exactly difficult. They just needed to start from Chang Yue's side, helping Chang Yue a bit would be enough to annoy Chang Fengyuan.
But, this method made Yin Chengjue feel very displeased, so he directly passed on it.
So, after thinking it over, there was only one method left: to disrupt the work Chang Fengyuan currently had on hand.
In order to secure his position in the Chang family, Chang Fengyuan was extremely cautious in every aspect and worked hard to please his father, making Chang Yue appear more and more like a useless good-for-nothing.
In his previous life, the reason Yin Chengjue could become friends with Chang Yue was mainly because their circumstances were similar. Similarly overlooked by their closest relatives, similarly dismissed by everyone.
However, this kind of association couldn't be considered sincere, and in the end, it still came to a bleak conclusion.
If he only targeted Chang Fengyuan, it would indirectly help Chang Yue, a situation Yin Chengjue obviously did not want to see.
"Then it can only be done on a larger scale..." Yin Chengjue decided in his heart.
Two days later, the preview for the episode featuring the main casts of "Blood Mist" and "Worlds Apart, Yet So Close" visiting "Extreme Joy" was officially released, causing the comments under "Extreme Joy's" official Weibo to explode.
Marketing accounts rushed over, comparing this shared stage to a battlefield, telling everyone to wait and see.
However, the fans on both sides didn't want to wait and see. They preferred that the crew their idol belonged to receive a separate invitation, not have their rivals invited over to annoy them again. The "Extreme Joy" program team was clearly doing this on purpose, aiming directly for traffic.
Without a word, the fans from both sides started fighting again, giving the bystanders a good show.
However, this was already a settled matter. No matter how much the fans protested, they couldn't change anything. Furthermore, "Extreme Joy" wasn't the type of program with a mild temper. Its established prestige was there. If the two fanbases boycotted too fiercely, the "Extreme Joy" program team could directly state "we will never invite these guests to our program again," instantly slashing their idols' exposure by a huge margin.
At the same time, the Chang Group's R-type driver not only lost the large batch order from the Yin Group but was also simultaneously rejected by several other companies in the high-tech industry chain.
Previously, the Chang Group had already paid a large amount of compensation to the Yin Group for the problems with the R-type driver. Originally, the Chang Group wanted to rely on their share of the market to negotiate with the Yin Group to pay only half the penalty. However, Yin Chengjue had already contacted the Murong family's enterprise in advance and secured a supply channel. The Yin Group executives saw that they had a new supply source and no longer needed to depend on the Chang Group's whims, so they decisively rejected the Chang Group's proposal. The two sides parted on bad terms.
Because of this incident, the Chang Group improved the R-type driver and guaranteed to their other partners that such incidents would not happen again. They also offered a price lower than the Murong family's driver, thus preserving their R-type driver market.
Of course, the losses were still significant. In the circulation of goods within big data, every percentage point lower than a competitor's price meant a loss of tens of millions.
However, compared to the overall profits, these losses were considered manageable. The Chang Group recorded this debt, intending to settle it later once their cash flow improved.
But who would have thought that before the ripples from the last incident had even settled, another huge wave would crash in, breaking open the gap they had worked so hard to plug!
The head of the Chang Group, the father of Chang Fengyuan and Chang Yue, racked his brains but couldn't understand why there were so many troublesome things happening recently.
No comments:
Post a Comment