Inside an abandoned building.
A group of people dressed in black sat in a circle, raising their glasses to celebrate their victory.
"This operation was a huge success. Thanks for all your hard work!" their leader declared passionately.
The others eagerly chimed in.
"No trouble at all! I've hated that bitch Xie for ages. It was an honor to take part!"
"A homewrecking slut thought she could whitewash herself on a dating show, latch onto a big shot, and hype up a new ship? What a joke. Like we'd ever let her get away with it!"
"Pretending to be Shen Yeqing's fans was genius! We got to trash Xie Mi and break up that heretical Xie Yeqing Kills the Donkey ship. Two birds with one stone!"
"I declare Xiao Rong the ultimate goddess-"
Bang!
The battered old door was suddenly kicked open, revealing a figure silhouetted against the light, their face impossible to make out.
"Who are you?!" The haters' leader immediately went on alert.
The figure said nothing, merely flashing a meaningful smile.
The next second, the assistant director burst out of the trash can where he had been hiding and shouted:
"Bet you didn't see that coming, you little haters!"
He held a phone, its camera pointed straight at them.
"It's the Love Watch crew!" The leader instantly panicked, covering his face as he yelled, "Run!"
But the mysterious figure at the door had already picked up a mop and started swinging it.
"With a shit-covered mop, I'm Lü Bu reborn! With a piss-covered mop, I'm Zhang Fei roaring!"
"You-Are-All-Dead!!!"
The haters screamed in terror.
"Holy shit! There's shit on it! Shit!!!"
"It stinks! Bleurgh, bleurgh, bleurgh-"
"Run! She's a fucking idiot!!"
The words "fucking idiot" instantly shattered Xie Mi's composure.
Fuck. No more absurdist comedy.
First, nobody gets my humor. Second, some people actually think I'm a fucking idiot.
"Nobody move!"
A group of police officers charged in and surrounded the haters. "You've gathered to cause trouble, disrupted public order, and damaged other people's property. Come to the station with us immediately!"
Shen Yeqing entered behind the officers and rested his warm palm gently on Xie Mi's head. "Don't let it get to you. You're not a fucking idiot."
Feels nice. Let's give it a rub.
Xie Mi irritably slapped his hand away. "Try sneaking in another dog-head rub. I dare you."
Shen Yeqing couldn't help laughing. "Caught me."
The haters were all hauled into the station and given a stern lecture by the police. Not only did they have to reimburse the production team for the equipment worth over a hundred thousand yuan, they also had to handwrite apology letters and post them on Weibo admitting their wrongdoing.
Confined to a holding room, the haters wrote their apologies but couldn't understand how the production team had discovered their top-secret operation.
Until their leader opened Xie Mi's livestream.
The picture quality was still that of a phone camera, but the viewer count had reached a staggering ninety million, putting it in first place among all the Love Watch streams by an overwhelming margin!
Comments flooded the screen so heavily that the livestream itself was impossible to see.
He had to turn the comments off first, and then he saw...
Xie Mi held her phone screen toward the camera. The group chat displayed on it was none other than-their own hater group!
"As the saying goes, know yourself and your enemy, and you'll win every battle."
Xie Mi flashed an evil grin. "Surprised? I secretly infiltrated every hater group ages ago. I have an alt in every single one~"
Using her knowledge of the original novel, she had completed the One Hundred Reasons to Hate Xie Mi questionnaire flawlessly. Infiltrating the hater groups had been child's play.
Their leader lost it and screamed, "Admin! Who's the group admin?!"
A hater in the corner timidly raised his hand. "Me..."
With a howl, the leader lunged at him, grabbed his collar, and shook him furiously.
"You strutted around as admin, bragging your ass off in the chat, but when someone snuck in, you didn't know jack! Now we've all been wiped out, and I don't even know how I died!!"
Xie Mi's raid put every hater on alert.
The haters disbanded all their group chats overnight.
In a single night, their entire organization fell apart.
Xie Mi's raid became famous as a result, with netizens jokingly dubbing it the [Black-Fan Purge].
#Xie Mi Raided the Haters' Den#
#You Got Cocky Smashing Her Equipment, Then Died Clueless When She Raided Your Den#
#Haters Apologize En Masse#
#Haters Posed as Shen Yeqing Fans#
As one trending topic after another broke, the previously vicious feud between Xie Mi's and Shen Yeqing's fans took a complete turn. Not only did they instantly make peace, they also forged an exceptionally deep bond as comrades-in-arms.
Xie Mi's and Shen Yeqing's livestreams also broke the show's viewership records. Even with mere phone-camera quality, they left every other stream in the dust. It was practically miraculous.
The video of the raid also went viral far beyond the fandom, spawning countless remixes and spreading across all the major short-video platforms.
Netizens split into conservatives and radicals over Xie Mi's actions.
The conservatives thought Xie Mi had been too conservative.
The radicals thought Xie Mi hadn't been radical enough.
[Chicken Punch]: All I can say is, beautifully done.
[Laughed My Head Sideways]: Someone should've dealt with these extreme stalkers ages ago. Following celebrities' cars, staking them out, smashing equipment in the street-what are they, the mafia?
[Let's All Perish]: Stalkers don't deserve to be called fans!!!
[Beautiful and I Know It]: Holy meow, that was so hot. Sister Xie, I'll sell everything I own if that's what it takes to cure your heterosexuality.
[Ship Scientist]: So my ship is alive again? My ship is alive again!!!
After this incident, Xie Yeqing Kills the Donkey became a massive hit.
Its ship supertopic overtook Xiao Rong's by five thousand followers, claiming first place on the supertopic rankings!
The assistant director grinned so widely his mouth nearly split. Radiant when he returned to the villa, he tossed a line at Director Niu.
"Yesterday you couldn't be bothered with me. Today I'm out of your league!"
Director Niu looked at him like he was a fucking idiot.
What a fucking idiot.
Xie Yeqing Kills the Donkey might not have been the most popular ship, but those two were the best at making entertaining television. Pairing them was bound to bring in good ratings. Director Niu had assigned him to that team precisely to help him build a track record.
And this idiot thought I was screwing him over.
A. Fucking. Idiot.
"Teacher Xie! Thanks for all your hard work! This was a win-win for us. Let me raise a glass to you!" Spotting Xie Mi about to head upstairs, the assistant director immediately went over to greet her.
Xie Mi gave him a look as though he were a fucking idiot, then went upstairs.
The assistant director looked utterly bewildered.
"You still don't get it, do you?" Shen Yeqing's languid voice came from beside him.
The assistant director looked over in confusion.
Shen Yeqing emerged from the kitchen holding a glass of water, relaxed and nonchalant. "Teacher Xie doesn't care about ratings."
"Huh?" The assistant director was still lost.
"Pfft-"
Shen Yeqing chuckled and patted the sweet, clueless assistant director on the shoulder before heading upstairs. "Still don't understand? If she hadn't wanted to cheer you up, Teacher Xie wouldn't have let you film on your phone."
The assistant director froze.
It seemed...
He was slowly beginning to understand.
Right. With Teacher Xie's utterly unbothered personality, if she wanted to raid the haters, she would simply have gone and done it. Why bother livestreaming it on a phone?
She had done it because...
The haters had made him cry.
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