Chapter 256: Everything Follows The “fall”
Everyone: “……”
Jin Xia glanced at the other Chi Ye Team members in the car and realized, after seeing everyone’s stiff expressions, that this time Chi Ye wasn’t lying to her.
The matter really wasn’t done by him himself.
—The matter indeed wasn’t done by Chi Ye.
He was now puzzled, wondering if he had really done Jiang Mou’s horse, otherwise, why would Jiang Mou, this mad dog, suddenly bite him?
Of course, such emotions only flashed for a moment, and he realized that Jiang Mou was probably “well-prepared”… at least, there was someone behind the scenes who wanted to cash in big before leaving.
And with his current momentum and status in the industry, as well as Jiang Mou’s former identity, his “price” was naturally the “market highest price”.
“Chi Ge… Keke Jie just called, saying she already sent the rumor refutation and lawyer’s letter, asking what you plan to do next……”
Xiao Liu saw Jin Xia sit next to Chi Ye but say nothing, so he continued the previous topic: “The incident fermented too quickly, Keke Jie said it feels like there’s a team manipulating behind the scenes.”
“In the end, it still came to the step of lawyer’s letter warning…”
Chi Ye muttered, and seeing the puzzled looks from those around him, he changed the topic: “Do we even need to guess?”
His expression unchanged, from the incident breaking to fermenting to peaking, the attitude developed very quickly. Ordinary gossip masses might think it’s because Jiang Mou has high popularity, Chi Ye has high popularity, but that’s only one aspect. The bigger reason is probably someone saw this message and started throwing money at it.
Who could it be?
Chi Ye thought it over and suddenly found he couldn’t guess…
Don’t misunderstand, it’s not that there are no suspects, but too many, making him unsure who exactly is targeting him, or… everyone together?
Just like Ji Hemming back then, he was actually just a vanguard pusher, and in the later stages, almost all young actor teams in the industry had joined in—even a dog could step on Lao Ji.
“Chi Ge, should we take some other countermeasures…”
Chi Ye paused, meeting the eyes of the other team members in the car. Some met his gaze frankly, others subconsciously avoided his eyes.
Hm…
How long has it even fermented? Even the people around him are starting to have their own thoughts?
He thought for a moment, then said: “Go back to the studio first.”
“……Okay.”
Chi Ye had just prepared to close his eyes and rest when he noticed the Empress Dowager next to him still poking at her mobile phone, very forcefully.
“What are you doing?”
“My dad asked me if you really have taxation issues.”
Chi Ye was puzzled: “Then just reply to him, what’s this?”
“I told him, I have taxation issues too, come arrest me!”
Chi Ye: “……”
He looked at Jin Xia’s delicate profile and suddenly lowered his voice: “You trust the previous ‘me’ this much?”
“Teacher Chi, I don’t trust you.”
The Empress Dowager looked up, humming: “But I support you unconditionally, I’ll help you cover it.”
……
“This isn’t about covering or not, go ask around, find out exactly what’s going on. This is an image issue. Chi Ye’s image has always been very good… except for the Yue Na experience, so this matter really should be investigated clearly.”
In the capital city, a leader who had a good private relationship with Chi Ye frowned while communicating on the phone: “I’m not trying to protect anyone… I mean, this matter will have to be resolved sooner or later. Everyone knows my relationship with Chi Ye, it’s inconvenient for me to ask. You do it on my behalf.”
“Movie? Sci-fi film is their private investment, what can I decide?”
“……Okay, fine, go ahead. Call me back as soon as you ask.”
The leader hung up the phone, feeling a bit uneasy inside.
How many “lawless madmen” there are in the entertainment industry—he, as one of the leaders in this area, knew all too well.
So, he was extremely conflicted now. On one hand, he admired Chi Ye very much because Chi Ye’s several outstanding performances had given him a big lead in competitions within the same system.
But where there are benefits, there are drawbacks, so he had also offended many people. Leaders who were close with Beijing Circle and other industry insiders were very dissatisfied with him.
At the same time, if this matter was really solid evidenced to be true, he, the person in charge who had always strongly supported Chi Ye in various aspects, might also be labeled with “shortcomings”.
The leader was distressed. He now desperately hoped in his heart that this hadn’t happened… Actually, the incident itself “isn’t big”, but unfortunately, first there was Chu Luan Yu’s “persona collapse”, and Chu Luan Yu’s matter had already spread throughout political and business circles, with extremely wide impact.
Then there were follow-ups with several big star artists from Yue Na System being thunderclapped and solid evidenced.
Chu Luan Yu’s incident elevated the situation to the ZZ level, attracting a lot of attention from above.
The thunderclap and solid evidence of Yue Na System artists increased the credibility of Jiang Mou’s words and expanded the scope.
The incident directly developed from a single artist at the start to multiple artists, and now even showing a trend of spreading to the entire entertainment industry… As the most outstanding of the young generation, Chi Ye had already been “hit”.
Chi Ye ah Chi Ye… you absolutely must not let me down, otherwise… both of us will have a hard time.
Thinking this way, not long after, the leader was just about to have a confidant call Chi Ye—he wasn’t convenient to contact Chi Ye directly now.
But unexpectedly, before the call could be made, the “solid evidence” arrived first.
—After exposing Chi Ye’s past “tax evasion”, Jiang Mou dropped another bombshell, publishing on Weibo detailed details of how the Rise boy group members had evaded taxes back then.
It even included real-name shell companies, processes, and supporting fake invoices.
The situation further escalated, and the already struggling Weibo server completely crashed.
The hot word #Chi Ye Persona Collapse# directly exploded across the entire internet platform, even affecting offline.
That’s right, not just Weibo, not just online—Douyin, Kuaishou, Xiaohongshu, Bilibili, and offline malls were all “affected”.
—Chi Ye was too popular, with too high popularity.
And this time it wasn’t some official announcement of love, it was a genuine “collapse”, so the influence and coverage he caused was beyond what the behind-the-scenes manipulators had imagined.
Online, Bilibili’s many entertainment industry UP mains were the most active. They, who usually boasted that Chi Ye was a breath of fresh air among traffic stars, within less than an hour of the incident, worked overtime to produce 【Summary of Chi Ye’s past various black spots】【Knew this kind of person would collapse】【Don’t understand how Chi Ye got popular】 and other eye-catching titles.
Specializing in number one speed for eating human blood steamed buns.
In this aspect, Douyin was more mainstream, with many bloggers not just riding on popularity.
「No good people in the entertainment industry.」
「Family, the wind has changed again, starting to black Ye Zi now?」
「To be honest, with Chi Ye’s treatment in Rise back then, do you think he had any autonomy? This shouldn’t blame Yue Na?」
「The issue isn’t blaming Yue Na, the issue is he left Yue Na long ago, did he make up for it?」
「Laughed, with Ye Zi’s “salary” back then, how would he make it up?」
「I can understand Chi Ye was helpless before, but the filter is indeed shattered a bit. Fans, stop whitewashing. Your brother was “suffering” before, but was his suffering worse than a farmer’s? Worse than a takeout guy’s?」
「Indeed, stop playing the victim. Also, he had no money before, but does he have no money now?」
「Hilarious, an hour ago Jiang Cheng and other stars posted selfies with Chi Ye to ride on popularity, I just checked again, the Weibo is deleted, haha, this time it’s really solid evidence, hammered personally by industry insiders.」
「……」
Six o’clock.
The Golden Eagle Festival red carpet had reached the grand finale climax stage.
The Golden Eagle red carpet, which wasn’t highly “emphasized” today, saw its live broadcast room numbers and popularity start surging at this time point.
Because, according to the original plan, Chi Ye and Jin Xia were to appear together as the grand finale for today’s Golden Eagle red carpet.
But now…
“……Director, should we call it off? Has there been any word from above?”
Backstage.
Golden Eagle Festival organizing committee.
The chief director in charge of the gala was smoking one cigarette after another when someone else came in and asked hurriedly: “Time is almost up.”
“……Why no word yet.”
If today’s biggest “victim” was arguably Chi Ye, then aside from him, the chief director felt he was the second biggest victim.
No, I’m just properly hosting a Golden Eagle Festival, and you have Chu Luan Yu’s persona collapse, Yue Na’s chain collapses… and now even their grand finale guest is about to “disappear from the human world”.
Again Rise, again this Jiang Mou!
Last time he had checked clearly, Peng Chen had diarrhea on the spot at the Golden Eagle Festival because he ate Jiang Mou’s snacks… Afterwards, Peng Chen’s team did a thorough investigation, and if Jiang Mou hadn’t run fast, he would have had to pay some “price”.
But as they say, “good food” isn’t afraid of being late. Last time Jiang Mou didn’t cause much of a stir, no problem—this time, he drove a self-explosion truck rumbling into internal entertainment for a big win!
“Fuck, does this Rise really have metaphysics? First the sex change plastic surgery collapse, then the self-explosion truck driver, plus ones who like diarrhea and going crazy… Who the hell approved this group?”
The chief director was baffled: “Yue Na deserves to be cut to pieces! Look at the people they cultivated?!”
“……Director, this isn’t the time to think about that. Chi Ye and Jin Xia’s red carpet time is about to start. What do we do now?”
The red carpet person in charge was very anxious now.
Industry iron rule: any artist with bad record cannot appear on camera, but… is Chi Ye a bad record artist now?
Don’t look at how big the fuss is now; actually, from Jiang Mou’s first Weibo post, only two or three hours have passed. The reason for the big impact is that this popularity wave connected to the Chu Luan Yu and Yue Na artist incidents from the past few days, plus Chi Ye’s personal high popularity.
Currently, Chi Ye’s side has sent Jiang Mou a lawyer’s letter and rumor refutation statement—these are standard operations in the industry after an incident, nothing special. True or false doesn’t matter, deny first.
In this situation, Chi Ye seems to already have signs of the building about to collapse, but… he’s right there on site, and the Golden Eagle Festival red carpet order is already arranged.
If not letting Chi Ye be grand finale, then who?
“Still no word from above? Why? If it’s a bad record artist, his announcement schedule should be canceled immediately.”
The chief director didn’t understand why the reaction from above was so slow, but at this point, with the sudden accident, he couldn’t count on anyone else, only himself.
“……To be safe, still cancel it. Let Jin Xia walk alone… Um, be polite in attitude. I heard Jin Xia and Chi Ye’s relationship…”
Before the chief director finished, the red carpet person in charge awkwardly said: “That… I got the message half an hour ago, Jin Xia apparently said if Chi Ye doesn’t walk, she won’t walk.”
Chief director: “……”
Dog man and woman!
He gritted his teeth: “Not walking… fine, not walking then. Who is before them?”
“Sheng Ning.”
“Good, then let Sheng Ning go first… Her star power is enough, no problem.”
“Okay.”
The person in charge finally got confirmation, breathed a sigh of relief, and hurriedly went to communicate with Sheng Ning’s team.
But five minutes later, he came back sweating profusely: “Director, Sheng Ning won’t walk either.”
“Ah?”
The chief director, who was just about to call above, was dumbfounded and surprised: “Sheng Ning won’t walk? Why? Impossible.”
Sheng Ning was famously picky about red carpet order in the industry, and… given her past relationship with Chi Ye, shouldn’t she be eager to take his grand finale spot?
“Um…”
The red carpet person in charge paused, then uncertainly said: “She seemed to say… she doesn’t want to change her position, and… she said since Chi Ye was set as grand finale, canceling him over something without solid evidence yet, aren’t we too… um.”
He didn’t finish, but the meaning was clear. Given Sheng Ning’s personality, the rest would be cold sarcasm.
“She really said that? Why do you have that expression? You’re not even sure?”
Person in charge: “What I’m not sure about is whether I hallucinated…”
The chief director was silent for two seconds, then waved: “This woman is too arrogant, even lecturing our TV station?”
“She can walk or not, find other same star power people to fill in. Tell them, this fill-in, consider it I owe them a favor…”
“Director… no.”
“???”
The chief director was completely anxious: “What no? What are you saying? Time is almost up, can you stop dawdling?”
“No, listen to me.”
The red carpet person in charge was also exploding with anxiety now, and extremely dumbfounded about what he encountered just now.
“I saw Sheng Ning wouldn’t agree, so I went to nearby Shang Youshu and Shi Jinwei… they both said no, told us to find someone else…”
Chief director: “……”
This time he calmed down, silent for a full ten seconds, then exclaimed: “They all say Chi Ye has no connections no friends… They really should see this. Don’t know about other circles, but in the drama circle… among top little flowers, he really has a hand.”
“Um… I think it’s too outrageous too. Before, they fought head over heels to be grand finale, now not one willing to take Chi Ye’s spot…”
The person in charge sighed too, but after sighing, he was anxious again: “Then director… none of them will walk, what do we do? Si Zi and Zhu Yao Lin are from film circle, no works nominated this time, no one to ‘fill’ for Chi Ye.”
