Wu Taotao's Weibo post instantly exploded onto the trending searches, pushing netizens' emotions to an even greater peak!
#Ask for Proof, Get Proof# (Revised)
Wu Taotao posted nine long images, each one containing chat logs. The profile pictures of those who provided the chats had been censored, but even through the blurred mosaics, it was clear that they came from nine different WeChat accounts. Yet they had all been chatting with the same person—Ning Shuixin.
Ning Shuixin's profile picture was her son's one-month photo. There was only one such photo on the entire internet, and it had appeared in screenshots of other people's chat logs before.
It was very easy to identify.
Yet the Ning Shuixin in these nine screenshots was completely different from the gentle, virtuous image everyone knew.
On WeChat, Ning Shuixin was condescending toward the artists under her management. Every other sentence in the chat logs was an order, and she even made blatant threats.
[Have dinner with Boss Wang at eight tonight. If you aren't there when the time comes, then go die.]
[Letting President Liu touch you won't cost you a piece of flesh. President Liu has already agreed. Spend one night with him, and that advertisement will be yours.]
[President He recorded what you looked like last night. If you dare expose this, don't blame us for sending your video to your parents. Then they'll know you've been someone's mistress out there.]
[President Xiao...]
The nine chat logs spanned five years. The most recent one was from a week ago, ordering the person in the ninth image to accompany someone drinking. Similar words appeared no fewer than a hundred times throughout the nine chat logs. On average, each person had been forced to do such things more than ten times.
Wu Taotao posted a second Weibo update:
@Taotao the Little Detective V: These nine images were provided by former artists from Wen-Ning Studio or their family members. Three of them have already passed away from severe depression. The victims hope to receive justice, and I hope everyone will not investigate their identities. I am willing to bear legal responsibility for every word I have said!
Wu Taotao's second Weibo post had no attached images, but those few lines felt even heavier than the post above.
After all, those were three living lives.
[Hiss! If these revelations are true, then Wen Yan and Ning Shuixin's crimes go far beyond tax evasion and money laundering. If these images are real, this married couple will rot in prison.]
[I thought the official notice was already shocking enough, but I never expected the dirt exposed by the paparazzi to be even more worldview-shattering!]
[Just reading those pages of chat logs makes me feel awful. Every word is so suffocating that I can barely breathe. How desperate must the victims who personally went through all this have been? If it's true, then Wen Yan and Ning Shuixin deserve to die!]
Weibo had not been this lively in a long time.
The romantic scandals involving He Jinyuan and Wan Zhen, as well as the wealthy-family dispute between Xu Wenchong and Wan Zhen, had been lively enough, but not everyone was interested in that gossip.
What Wei Shaolin had done was enraging, but Miao Qingran did not have many fans, and the wealthy couple next door tearing each other apart was more entertaining. As a result, their scandal only remained a topic of discussion for one day.
This time, however, Ning Shuixin was a national goddess with tens of millions of fans, while Wen Yan had once been a wildly popular costume-drama heartthrob. Together, they had nearly twenty million fans, and the scandal exposed was even more shocking than the previous romantic gossip. It could be called a massive earthquake in the entertainment industry.
Even the fans who had previously defended Ning Shuixin and Wen Yan fell silent as they waited for the two to explain.
However, Ning Shuixin and Wen Yan had already been detained for financial crimes. Most of the people at their studio who had any authority had also been implicated in the money-laundering case and taken away, leaving them unable to carry out crisis PR immediately.
As the situation continued to escalate, every brand endorsed by Ning Shuixin and Wen Yan announced that it was terminating its contracts with them. More victims also stepped forward to accuse Wen Yan and Ning Shuixin.
The day after Wu Taotao made her post, Wen-Ning Studio finally released an announcement denying the authenticity of her claims and stating that it would sue those spreading rumors.
But immediately afterward, the authorities released another notice.
@Peaceful Sea City V: Recently, our department received reports from concerned citizens regarding allegations that "Wen and Ning forced employees into sex/transactions." Following an investigation, the reports were found to be true. Suspects Wen and Ning have now been criminally detained in accordance with the law. The case remains under further investigation.
Even though the authorities had blurred the names, anyone with eyes knew that the notice referred to Wen Yan and Ning Shuixin.
[Wen-Ning Studio really asked for proof and got proof, huh? I'm dying. The authorities personally confirmed it. Let's see how those fans keep defending them now.]
[The first people ever to be named in an official notice. Mr. and Mrs. Wen-Ning deserve this level of treatment.]
Chu Xiyue had also been following the development of the matter. Only after seeing the official notice did she finally breathe a sigh of relief.
However, the chain reaction caused by this incident had only just begun.
Following the trail from Wen Yan and Ning Shuixin, the police uncovered a whole group of celebrities who had once laundered money with the couple and helped them evade taxes. They also arrested a group of men involved in forced money/sex transactions, including several of the men mentioned in the chat logs.
The internet had been in an uproar these past few days. Every celebrity who had ever interacted with the Wen-Ning couple wished they could draw a clear line between themselves and them.
But a small number of people were conclusively exposed as having been excessively close to the Wen-Ning couple, even participating in money laundering and tax evasion.
Feng Xiuzhuo was one of them.
Feng Xiuzhuo had been overwhelmed these past few days. Ever since Wen Yan and Ning Shuixin were arrested, he had immediately gone to the tax authorities to make up some unpaid taxes as soon as he caught wind of it. But even so, his eyelid kept twitching, as though something bad was about to happen.
And Feng Xiuzhuo's instincts were not wrong. On the third day after the Wen-Ning couple was arrested, Wu Taotao published another article titled [Exposing the Wen-Ning Couple's Close Friends in the Industry]. The words "Wen-Ning couple" had recently become a guaranteed traffic magnet, and the article immediately drew netizens' attention upon publication.
The article was packed with images and text, collecting celebrities who had interacted frequently with the Wen-Ning couple over the past decade. Feng Xiuzhuo's name was prominently listed, and he received the most coverage.