Chapter 20
“It isn’t an illusion. Wait a moment.” Xie Yang covered the receiver, asked for noodles from the housekeeper who was preparing the ingredients for a meal in the kitchen and then removed his hand. “Okay, tell me what is going on.”
Hu Biao instantly cheered up and spoke in one breath. “Public opinion has been fermenting for nearly a day. Now there are a lot of discussions about you on Weibo. In short, you should contact your father and ask him not to talk. Some media outlets want to interview your father to ask about selling you. Mo Bin must’ve hired a lot of water armies. There are all types of gossip flying around on Weibo. The situation is bad for you! And—”
“Stop.” Xie Yang interrupted Hu Biao’s incoherent long speech and sat down at the dining table. He asked, “Did you do anything out of a sense of urgency while I was sleeping?”
Hu Biao really lost his temper. He felt suffocated as he replied, “No! I even asked Tong Jian and Ke Lan to turn off their phones. Xie Yang, what’s your plan? Your Weibo is being influenced by Mo Bin and now Mo Bin’s fans are all scolding you!”
“There is indeed a plan. Call Huang Mo and ask him if the recording of our meeting on that day can be made public. If he gives permission, I will directly release it on Weibo.”
Hu Biao couldn’t believe it. “Wait, recording. Did you record the meeting that day?”
“I recorded it. Mo Bin is too villainous so I always have to keep something up my sleeve.”
After a long silence, Hu Biao ‘s excited voice was heard. “You should’ve told me earlier that you were recording! Mo Bin recorded you and you also recorded him. Sure enough, heaven’s law means there is appropriate retribution. I will contact Huang Mo immediately. We have to release this recording!”
Xie Yang hung up the phone and raised his eyebrows.
Wait, what did Hu Biao just say? ‘Mo Bin recorded you and you also recorded him?’
Mo Bin recorded it too? What did he record?
The housekeeper brought out the noodles. Xie Yang raised his gaze, put down the mobile phone to thank him, temporarily suppressed his doubts and carefully ate the noodles. Then he picked up his phone again, registered a Weibo side account and clicked onto the hot topic list.
As expected, Mo Bin’s morning announcement really went on the hot list. Coincidentally, the two posts below the announcement happened to be the one he sent before he was sleeping and the one about how he was sold to an old man. The three of them were arranged in order and was convenient for those eating melons.
Xie Yang first clicked on Mo Bin’s announcement and quickly scanned the comments below it.
It had to be said that Mo Bin was good at blurring the focus and shifting the blame. The new announcement was as Hu Biao said on the phone. The facts were distorted and he lied about the troubles with Ke Lan, Tong Jian and even Wenyi. The root cause was actually the purchase of new music. He said that because he didn’t agree to buy music from outside, the new IUD album was delayed.
At the end of the announcement, Mo Bin implied that there was still room for discussion among the old members about the purchase of music but after Xie Yang joined the group, it became impossible to talk about things.
In the comments area, the brainwashed fans were grieving for Mo Bin.
“Brother, why are you so silly?”
“I feel sorry for my brother. What is the use of you persisting in maintaining the group spirit alone? These people are all bad.”
”These people are so despicable. They want to destroy my brother’s IUD. These people’s hearts are so broken. They actually smear my brother like this.”
“Thank you for your persistence.”
”Xie Yang is really a scum.”
There were many such comments.
Xie Yang took a sip of water to calm down and then went to see the passersby reaction.
After several hours of fermentation, Mo Bin’s announcement and the water army succeeded in skewing the rhythm. The discussions of people changed from ‘If Mo Bin is the first to find a new home and abandon IUD’ to ‘IUD buying music’. Mo Bin’s personal image had changed from ‘hypocritical and treacherous older brother’ to ‘only team leader who insists on maintaining the spirit of IUD and is despised by the team members’. A 180 degrees reversal had taken place.
Xie Yang found that he was wrong. Mo Bin was probably valued, not abandoned by his new company. The fact that public opinion could be reversed so quickly meant Mo Bin’s company had probably hired a large number of water armies.
After understanding the content of the new announcement, Xie Yang went through the explosive Weibo posts.
The one who broke the news was an entertainment marketing account. The posting time was an hour after Mo Bin’s announcement. The content was the screenshot of a private chat record, two surveillance videos and a recording.
There was nothing big in the screenshot of the private chat record. A person who claimed to be a former waiter of a restaurant told the marketing account about the quarrel he heard between Xie Yang and Xie Yang’s father.
The things that really sparked the discussion were the two surveillance videos and the recording. The surveillance videos had two sections. One was a video of Xie Yang and Xie Xiu entering the box one after another. The other was the video of Xie Xiu and Hu Biao fighting in the corridor.
Xie Yang turned to this and paused a bit. He knew the key point was coming. He amplified the volume on his phone and clicked on the agreement.
The recording was short. There were only two sentences and the first one was what Xie Yang said. The content was, ‘This is my father. He wants to sell me to an old man’. The second was Hu Biao’s question, which was ‘So what you said on the phone before was true?’
Xie Yang was really surprised.
It turned out that Mo Bin recorded this. That time, it was completely accidental that he met Hu Biao and the others. In that case, it was great that Mo Bin actually recorded the sound so quickly.
Xie Yang flipped through the comments under the breaking news.
The comments area was very harmonious. Everyone was scolding him and spreading the rumour. Among them, Mo Bin’s fans were responsible for scolding, Mo Bin’s water army was responsible for spreading rumours and passersby were responsible for eating melons and spreading rumours. Among all the rumours, there were two heated discussions. One was that he was too ambitious to stay in IUD because he colluded with a gold master. Thus, he deliberately messed up the first appearance of the new IUD in Hello Holiday and provoked the relationship between the team members. The other was that they suspected the person who bought him was a high-ranking member of Wenyi.
Finally, he went to the comments section under his own Weibo to take a look.
It was probably due to his relationship with Mo Bin but most of the popular comments were occupied by Mo Bin’s fans. Some of them asked why Mo Bin wanted to be blamed for his crimes, some told him to get out of the entertainment circle, some asked him not to ‘escape by sleeping’, and some wondered why he slept during the day… in short, the contents were painless and there was nothing to pay attention to.
In addition to these, Xie Yang found the hot topic #Xie Yang get out of the entertainment circle#. He clicked on the topic and found there was a marketing account that sent a performance video of the previous owner during the professional class examination in his freshman year. In the following comments, Mo Bin’s fans ridiculed the original owner’s rigid performance in the video. It was no wonder why the original owner wanted to stay in IUD. It turned out that his acting was too bad.
It seemed that this was all that was left after Mo Bin exhausted all his resources and spent a day tossing everything out.
Xie Yang put down his phone and started to think seriously. The original owner’s examination video should be considered a student’s personal privacy. Wasn’t it illegal for the school to just release it?
Hu Biao’s phone call interrupted his thoughts.
“Xie Yang, Huang Mo said the recording can be sent but it must be edited first. Send me the complete version of the recording and I’ll edit it now. In addition, Mo Bin just contacted Ke Lan through a middleman, stating it isn’t too late to throw all the blame on your head. He also said that for the sake of everyone’s feelings over the past few years, he wanted to let public opinion stop here.”
Xie Yang sneered. “He thought too beautifully.”
Hu Biao spoke indifferently. “I think so too.”
Both of them laughed. Then Xie Yang said, “I’ll send you a WeChat message with the recording. You edit it as soon as possible.”
“Okay.”
After sending the recording to Hu Biao, Xie Yang switched to his own Weibo. He ignored the tens of thousands of messages that poured out and slowly wrote a post.
[Xie Yang: I woke up. Mo Bin, in response to what you just contacted Ke Lan about, I’ll return it to you. Wake up and dream when it is dark.]
[Xie Yang: Someone asked me why I am pulling Mo Bin into this. It can be seen from the monitoring video that there were only five people in the corridor at that time. Me, Hu Biao, Mo Bin, Ke Lan and Tong Jian. Among them, Mo Bin, Ke Lan and Tong Jian were still in the box. So, on the premise that Ke Lan and Tong Jian are my current teammates and Hu Biao is my current agent, they have no reason to harm me. So who recorded and exposed that recording?]
[Xie Yang: There is also the matter of my father selling me. Yes, my father sold me to a tall, handsome and rich man for 500 million. Are you jealous?]
[Xie Yang: @Mo Bin you have a recording and I also have one. Think about what you said during the meeting that day. Are you flustered?]
It took less than five minutes after the posts were sent for Hu Biao to make another phone call with a tone of relief. “Mo Bin contacted me directly and asked for privacy.”
Xie Yang smiled. “Privacy. Yes, if he is willing then to apologize to me on Weibo then I will agree to keep it private.”
“……” Hu Biao wanted to laugh. “You know he won’t be willing.”
Xie Yang pretended to feel regret. “Then I can only thank him for giving me so much heat. Tell everyone that we are going to announce the news that the concert for IUD’s fifth anniversary will be held as scheduled.”
30 minutes later, they posted on Weibo at almost the same time.
Ke Lan: Never forget your first intentions. You have to stay the course. The fifth year anniversary performance is in sight. The song ‘IUD’ will be presented.
Tong Jian: I’m coming with a new song. IUD isn’t over yet. See you at the fifth anniversary performance!
Xu Chenhao: IUD’s fifth anniversary performance isn’t gone.
Hu Biao: Let’s work hard again for our original intention! IUD, let’s go! @Ke Lan @Xu Chenhao @Tong Jian @Xie Yang
Xie Yang also sent a post.
[Xie Yang: See you there!]
There were two links before. One was a link to grab tickets for the performance and the other was a recording link with subtitles edited by Hu Biao.
Weibo seemed quiet for a few seconds and then the entire IUD circle started to shake.