She Said: A Passionate Kiss [Entertainment Industry] - Chapter 10
The only sounds in the room were the tapping of the keyboard and the scrolling of the mouse. Gu Pingwan stared at the upward-trending red line graph on her screen, then looked at the positive sentiment line, which remained stagnant in the middle.
She averted her eyes and sighed.
According to the data scraped from Weibo, negative public sentiment overwhelmingly dominated.
Some posts claimed Qiang Huai engaged in sexual activities while pregnant, causing even the fetus to get pregnant. Others said that all the artists in her company, regardless of gender, were subjected to her “casting couch” practices—sometimes even in groups. There were also rumors that likened her to some foreign conglomerate tycoon, saying she had personally built an empire centered around HuaiSheng Group.
It was ridiculous…
Gu Pingwan was speechless. She couldn’t imagine how people could fabricate such absurd stories.
She adjusted the crawling parameters to real-time data. Near midnight, she saw a slight uptick in the positive sentiment line.
On the top floor of the towering office building, lights were blazing. Everyone was staring at their screens, engaged in battle.
Qiang Huai had ordered late-night snacks for everyone. Just as the food was wheeled in by administration, another wave of internet trolls launched their attack. Everyone ignored the food, holding their breath while monitoring the different sentiment charts.
Following Qiang Huai’s instructions, the company had released a statement claiming a certain man had smeared her online out of resentment after being rejected. Netizens, who had just started calming down, quickly reignited the gossip.
“Damn, is this real?”
“This pervert is disgusting. People who spread false porn rumors should go to hell!”
“Let the dust settle. I knew Qiang Huai couldn’t possibly do that.”
“Random passerby here—Qiang Huai was never clean to begin with. Otherwise, how’d she get to the top? (No offense tho)”
Despite releasing clarification posts, many still didn’t believe them, questioning their authenticity.
Qin-jie then mobilized the company’s old network of marketing accounts and began mass-releasing humorous videos about the situation.
“Fam, I can’t stop laughing—rumors about Qiang Huai’s scandals turned out to be self-directed and acted by some guy? Funniest gossip of 2023!”
“Compilation of Qiang Huai’s most stunning moments!”
“Shocking! There’s actually a twist in Qiang Huai’s case!”
“HELP—come watch this, how is Qiang Huai so unintentionally hilarious?”
A flood of videos and soft news articles swept across major media platforms. Netizens stayed up late eating popcorn on Weibo, crashing the servers in the middle of the night.
Meanwhile, on the top floor, Qiang Huai was handing out spicy crayfish to her staff.
“Come, come—enough work, eat something,” she said, handing out gloves.
After checking their respective data dashboards, employees obediently came to her for gloves. Qiang Huai was always this approachable at work, so no one really treated her like a celebrity.
“Thanks for helping me monitor the data so late. If it’s inconvenient to go home, don’t. I’ve booked two floors of the hotel next door in advance,” she said while handing out gloves. “If you prefer going home, Qin-jie has arranged buses to send everyone.”
Everyone turned to look. The five-star hotel across the street shimmered in the night with its bright signage.
“Boss! I’m not going home!”
“Boss! I want to work overtime!”
People were all shouting enthusiastically. A hotel room there cost over 1,000 a night—who wouldn’t want a free stay?
After dinner, when they checked public sentiment again, many people had switched sides.
They were now praising Qiang Huai’s past work, her charity efforts, and even her recently reposted Weibo statements.
Instead of demanding that Qiang Huai prove her innocence, people started pressuring the original rumor-spreading media to produce evidence.
Ordinarily, celebrities post clarifications late at night. But Qiang Huai had taken a different route—and it worked brilliantly.
Qin-jie followed Qiang Huai into her office and sat on the sofa. “Public opinion is under control now, but we can’t monitor everything in real time. We’ll have to wait for the IT department to give a full report in the morning.”
Qiang Huai leaned back in her chair and rubbed her brow. “No rush.”
“You handled this so well, I feel like you don’t even need me as your agent anymore,” Qin-jie said teasingly.
“Qin-jie, come on. Back then, when I didn’t know anything, you complained. Now that I’ve learned everything, you still complain,” Qiang Huai replied, and the two of them laughed together.
She knew exactly what Qin-jie was worried about. “From now on, I’ll be focusing more on acting. You can handle the company operations—don’t worry.”
Qin-jie nodded. She was nearly forty and had been in the entertainment industry with Qiang Huai for years. With industries constantly churning out younger replacements, especially women, she had her share of anxiety.
“But this means more work for you,” Qiang Huai added.
Just then, Xiaoyu burst into the room, breathless. “Teacher Qiang! Engineer Gu just dropped this off.”
“What is it?” Qiang Huai asked.
“She handed me this USB drive downstairs,” Xiaoyu explained. She had been helping coordinate rides for staff when she bumped into Gu Pingwan, who gave her the USB and left, saying she had other things to do.
“She already left?” Qiang Huai grabbed her jacket.
“She said it’s a program,” Xiaoyu said.
Qiang Huai quickly plugged the USB into her computer. The screen went black. No matter what she clicked, it wouldn’t open.
“Hmm?” Qiang Huai frowned.
Xiaoyu peered over her shoulder. “Did we get a virus?”
Qin-jie walked over from the sofa. “Are you sure Gu Pingwan gave it to you? Maybe you mistook her for someone else.”
“No, no, I’m sure!” Xiaoyu shook her head firmly.
Suddenly, the screen flickered twice, and a blue dialog box popped up. In the center was a line graph—red for negative sentiment, green for positive, and black for neutral.
The lines wove together in real-time, clearly showing how positive sentiment began rising after midnight.
“Your Gu classmate’s got skills,” Qin-jie said, impressed. “You’ve really picked up a gem.”
This kind of program would’ve taken the IT department days to put together. And Gu Pingwan had done it in just a few hours?
Qiang Huai raised an eyebrow. “Of course. She graduated from Tsinghua and was recommended straight to the Chinese Academy of Sciences.”
“Oh wow, listen to you brag. Her being smart doesn’t mean your tail has to wag so high,” Qin-jie joked.
Xiaoyu giggled off to the side.
After the program finished its animation, the blue dialog box slid left, revealing several segments of data—keyword sentiment analysis, origin tracking by IP address, and even a download button for exporting the data.
Now they didn’t have to wait for the IT team anymore. Qin-jie immediately took the reports to coordinate with each department and submitted the IP address analysis to the police.
Qiang Huai opened her phone and looked at her chat with Gu Pingwan.
She sent a message: “Thank you, Gu classmate.”
But there was no reply.
Gu Pingwan was fast asleep on the hospital’s folding cot. Her brain had been working nonstop all day—she badly needed the rest.
Seeing no response, Qiang Huai put down her phone and instructed the employees still working overtime to head to the hotel and rest.
…
The next day.
Outside the HuaiSheng Group building, reporters swarmed, but security kept them at bay.
In her office suite, Qiang Huai was applying a face mask. Though she didn’t often sleep there, the space was fully equipped.
The top-floor employees were given half a day off, and Qiang Huai planned to use the exported IP data to reconstruct the web of personal connections.
Yesterday’s data showed that most of the troll traffic came from Shandong. She couldn’t help but think of An Linlin.
Just then, she got a message from Qunqun:
“Huai Huai! An Linlin wants to meet you.”
Qiang Huai furrowed her brow in confusion.
“She says she has something to tell you.”
“Why doesn’t she come find me herself?” Qiang Huai replied.
She exited the chat and pulled up her conversation history with An Linlin. The last message was a simple holiday greeting on Mid-Autumn Festival.
“Where are you?” Qiang Huai asked bluntly.
An Linlin quickly replied: “Downstairs at your office.”
Qiang Huai immediately called Xiaoyu and sent her a photo of An Linlin, instructing her to discreetly escort her up via the underground passage.
Didn’t even need to bait the hook—the fish came jumping out of the water.
Qiang Huai finished her mask, applied lipstick, then put on a long, loose white shirt. Her lower half was bare, revealing smooth pale legs.
She sat in her office, waiting.
Soon, Xiaoyu arrived with a woman in a hood.
Qiang Huai nearly laughed. What was this—coming to rob a bank?
The woman walked up to her, removed the hood, and revealed a face that had undergone multiple cosmetic surgeries. Her cheeks were still bruised. She looked very different from her online photos.
Qiang Huai tested the waters: “An Linlin?”
As soon as she heard her name, tears streamed down An Linlin’s face.
“Qiang Huai, I’m so sorry!” With a loud thud, she dropped to her knees.
Xiaoyu rushed forward to help her up, and Qiang Huai, stunned by the dramatic gesture, also stepped forward.
An Linlin sobbed, “Please save me, Qiang Huai. I’m begging you.”
“What happened? Tell me slowly.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she choked out, snot and tears everywhere. “It was… it was my fault that your picture got leaked…”
Her words were muffled and messy. Qiang Huai raised her voice, irritated, “Stop crying and speak properly—your nose implant’s about to fall out.”
Xiaoyu tried hard not to laugh, forcing herself to think of the saddest things in her life.
An Linlin took a few deep breaths to calm down. Her swollen eyes looked at Qiang Huai, then at Xiaoyu.
“…Did it really shift?” she asked.
Qiang Huai: “…”
Xiaoyu: “…”
“Back to the point,” Qiang Huai rolled her eyes.
An Linlin sniffled twice. “That photo… I was the one who posted it.”
She grabbed Qiang Huai’s hand. “But I didn’t mean to.”
“I don’t know how to explain it to you, but please believe me.”
Qiang Huai immediately pulled her hand back and asked coldly, “Wasn’t that photo with Yu Lele?”