TRMP Chapter 82

Chapter 80

The matter of dropping out of school was like a stone thrown into water, creating ripples.

“Fraud” and “dropping out of school” placed together could stir up countless curiosities and associations.

“Isn’t the melon owner going to come out and say a few more words?”

“Fraud? A college student committing fraud, was he caught participating in money laundering and forced to drop out of school?”

“May the rumor-mongering dogs die early! If he defrauded you, wouldn’t you go to the police?”

“Looking at his face, I felt he was not someone who would be honest. I don’t know what his fans like about him.”

Various speculations ran rampant.

The internet was noisy, and just the issue of Jiang Yifeng’s education could spark hundreds of comments.

Various big V marketing accounts jumped in, seizing the opportunity to gain popularity, scolding celebrities, and pretending to reveal secrets. Jiang Yifeng instantly became a top-tier celebrity in the entertainment industry.

——A negative top-tier celebrity.

Fans and passersby tore at each other, marketing accounts fueled the fire, and malicious water armies stirred up trouble, quickly binding Jiang Yifeng to the word “fraud.” In web searches, “fraud” and “illiterate” were directly fixed as Jiang Yifeng’s associated terms.

Ocean Media personally intervened to remove the associated terms, but when they contacted the person in charge of the social media platform, the other party claimed that all the keywords were directly searched by users – they did not interfere with user search results.

The executive in charge slammed the table in the office and cursed, “Bullshit.”

“That son of a bitch accepted money to clean up search terms and was even investigated by the higher-ups. Within a week of receiving the penalty notice, he took 200,000 from us to help clean up Liu Dong’s black search terms… now he says he doesn’t interfere?”

The executive’s face turned completely black.

“It just means someone gave more money.”

Jiang Yifeng sat across the desk, his eyes lowered in silence.

His fingers were intertwined, and even though he was the one being bombarded with abuse, Jiang Yifeng didn’t have much agitation or complex emotions.

He felt more of a loss and sadness from having his painful past brought up again, like a scar being reopened. The anxiety to stitch it up had disappeared, leaving only a dull ache.

The executive anxiously made phone calls, and in between calls, he complained, “Someone must have seen you’re popular recently, with variety shows and magazines. The last magazine sold out 50,000 copies in a minute. You have a strong momentum among the new generation… Recently, Zhao Wenjun’s new drama also gave you a role. It would be strange if they weren’t jealous.”

Jiang Yifeng didn’t speak, he just frowned slightly and said unhappily, “But that’s not Zhao Wenjun’s new drama, and it’s just a martial arts drama.”

If a truly top-tier celebrity intervened to steal the role, the other party might really be willing to replace Jiang Yifeng.

After all, the contract hadn’t been signed yet.

But obviously, no top-tier person was willing to take on Zhu Kuoyang’s martial arts drama.

But they were still jealous of Jiang Yifeng for being willing to take the role and thus connect with Zhao Wenjun.

Jiang Yifeng felt it was extremely absurd.

“That’s the entertainment industry. Resources you don’t want yourself can’t be given to others.” The executive lowered his head and continued making phone calls.

Jiang Yifeng flipped through his phone. He didn’t look at the comments, nor did he pay attention to the rhythm the people were leading – because he vaguely knew that they would gradually transition from his education to that matter.

Jiang Yifeng’s body trembled slightly, his hands clenched into fists, and he tried to count numbers in his head, gradually suppressing his emotions.

His emotions gradually calmed down. Perhaps because he had encountered similar situations before, Jiang Yifeng was no longer so flustered.

The executive made several phone calls in a row, and a few marketing companies were willing to help. He finally relaxed a little and looked at Jiang Yifeng again.

“It’ll be done soon…”

The door suddenly opened from the outside, and Jin Xin, holding a phone, smiled a little smugly, standing opposite Jiang Yifeng and sneering, “New situation, Jiang Yifeng, aren’t you going to explain?”

“What?” The executive looked over in surprise, and a message popped up on Jiang Yifeng’s phone at the right time.

——【Jiang Yifeng suspected of defrauding classmates of money during college, multiple people posting transfer records.】

Jiang Yifeng knew it without looking.

There wasn’t much to see.

“Transfer records, chat records, I don’t know which great god kept them.” Jin Xin’s tone was full of schadenfreude: “Your father was sick, that’s really a good excuse.”

Jiang Yifeng took a deep breath.

“My dad has passed away. He was really sick. I was raising money to pay for medical expenses at the time.” Jiang Yifeng calmly stated the process.

The executive had vaguely heard about Jiang Yifeng’s situation from Luo Qi, and since Jiang Yifeng was an employee of the company after all, he naturally sided with Jiang Yifeng.

“Okay, I understand. So… since everything they’re saying is true, then we just need to tell the truth and everything will be fine. And your father’s death can also be used well. Maybe it can arouse sympathy from fans. Then we’ll counter-sue the marketing accounts. We’ll definitely win a beautiful turnaround.”

The executive smiled as he stated his solution.

He spoke in an extremely calm tone about using Jiang Yifeng’s tragic background to gain sympathy, while Jin Xin gloated, “Do you think netizens will believe it?”

Jiang Yifeng’s gaze fell on Jin Xin.

Jin Xin approached Jiang Yifeng step by step.

Jiang Yifeng was becoming more and more popular in the entertainment industry, and his actions to hinder Jiang Yifeng seemed ridiculous to others – no one knew about Jiang Yifeng’s offense to him that night. All of Jin Xin’s obstruction was seen as unreasonable.

In order to ensure Jiang Yifeng’s popularity, his power in the company and the resources tilted towards him became less and less. Jin Xin was marginalized.

In just a few short months, Jiang Yifeng’s fans and influence became more and more terrifying.

His fan base increased, but it didn’t bring him any negative impact.

Jiang Yifeng simultaneously persuaded fans online and offline not to chase him offline, causing his fans on the internet to curse and act recklessly like ordinary celebrity fans, but offline, they didn’t cause any trouble and didn’t enter the eyes of ordinary people.

Jiang Yifeng’s appearance was good. For most people in the entertainment industry, that kind of extremely glamorous appearance was almost overwhelming.

As time went on, Jiang Yifeng would eventually attract more resources because of his fans.

——And when the company used all its resources to promote Jiang Yifeng, it would be the time when Jin Xin was completely finished.

So Jin Xin almost hated Jiang Yifeng deeply.

He also knew that he had to stop Jiang Yifeng from continuing to become popular.

“Using your own father as a means, that’s quite filial.” Jin Xin twitched the corners of his mouth, “But how could they believe it? They wouldn’t scold you for fraud, you said your dad died, and your classmates turned against you.”

“…” Jiang Yifeng’s face was a little pale, and his eyes turned cold as he stared straight at Jin Xin.

Jin Xin continued to laugh: “And since so many people have come out to expose you, they must have resentment towards you. As long as they insist that you committed fraud, what do you do?”

“Besides, everyone is not a seven or eight-year-old child. Jiang Yifeng, so many people are targeting you. Is it because you said your father died that they don’t think you cheated them out of money? Can you provide evidence?”

Jiang Yifeng tried hard to suppress the urge to punch Jin Xin.

He tried to keep his emotions stable, and under Jin Xin’s provocation, he still looked for logic: “I have evidence. I have my dad’s hospital receipts, and I have the transfer records of me paying back the money.”

Jin Xin didn’t expect Jiang Yifeng to be so well prepared.

He paused for a moment, then couldn’t help but laugh: “What’s wrong, did you expect your dad to die early, so you prepared so well…”

The next second, Jiang Yifeng had already picked up the book on the table and slapped it on Jin Xin’s cheek.

The things Clippedin the book pages scattered, and the action of hitting Jin Xin’s cheek hard stunned him. The executive hurriedly came up to stop him, but Jiang Yifeng punched Jin Xin’s cheek from the side.

Jin Xin raised his hand and pressed over, but Jiang Yifeng dodged and hooked Jin Xin’s neck, throwing him to the ground.

Several rough and violent movements caused Jiang Yifeng to gasp for breath.

Sure enough, it was right not to attack Jin Xin’s stomach.

A fat man’s stomach has a lot of meat, and Jin Xin might not even feel the pain if he took a few punches.

He still had to hit the face.

Jiang Yifeng calmly thought.

Jin Xin’s head was dizzy when he fell to the ground, and the executive had stopped Jiang Yifeng’s movements, loudly scolding Jiang Yifeng for not hitting someone.

As he spoke, Jiang Yifeng added: “I won’t make a fuss about my dad’s death. I’m just stating the facts to you. He died, and the money was spent on his medical expenses. That’s all. I don’t want to see any drafts that say how sad I am because my dad is gone… I only have one explanation: he died of illness, and the money I took was spent on him. And, my money has been paid back.”

“If you want evidence, I can provide evidence.”

“But anything extra, I don’t want to hype.”

Jiang Yifeng’s tone was calm and clear.

He had always been grateful to those classmates who had donated to him that year – several classmates, both acquaintances and strangers, had donated money to his father, from a few yuan to a few dozen, adding up to one or two thousand.

When he paid back the money, he even added interest according to the highest bank interest rate in the past few years and returned the money one by one.

He flipped through his phone, looking at the records posted by those marketing accounts.

Several of them had unfamiliar tones. At a glance, they were thank-you conversations with unfamiliar classmates from the same school, thanking them for their help.

But one of them was very familiar. Jiang Yifeng had said several sentences to that person – that screenshot was from one of Jiang Yifeng’s former roommates, who had donated 500 yuan to him.

And that screenshot was also spliced ​​with a six-year-old conversation, “Jiang Yifeng, you dead swindler, pay back the money!”, this conversation was followed by a red exclamation mark, indicating that the other party had been blacklisted.

Jiang Yifeng looked up and down at those photos.

He admitted that all the photos were of money he had borrowed, which was the truth, and it didn’t matter if they were released.

He just didn’t understand why they still only released these few screenshots when he had already paid back the money.

For six years, they would rather keep the oldest screenshot from six years ago than release the new screenshot.

He didn’t understand.