Ye Yizhou had been acting a little crazy lately

"Have you gotten public opinion under control?"

The three-day livestream for the first installment of The Red Thread of Love had ended. The moment Song Jincheng got into the van his manager, Li Pingqi, had brought to pick him up, he asked impatiently.

Because the variety show was livestreamed, the guests naturally cut back on or even stopped using their phones on camera, both for the audience's viewing experience and for the cameras.

Only after the first day's livestream ended, when Song Jincheng used his phone in his room, did he discover that Ye Yizhou had made so many trending searches after just an hour or two of streaming.

In particular, Ye Yizhou's attitude toward him on the livestream and the contrast between his previous and current personalities had turned public opinion somewhat against him.

"Of course. Ye Yizhou is so obscure he barely has any fans, and his reputation was already terrible. All it takes is a little nudging, and everyone knows how to take the cue and start trashing him."

Li Pingqi looked a little smug as he spoke, with a touch of contempt for Ye Yizhou.

"Good."

Song Jincheng nodded in satisfaction. Ye Yizhou was a tool he used to make himself look better by putting him down. There was no way he would let that tool walk all over him.

"What's this about him being married?"

Song Jincheng had been stunned when he saw the trending searches.

"Just because he says he's married, does that mean he really is? There's no evidence at all."

Li Pingqi did not think this was anything difficult to handle and said disdainfully, "But that won't stop people online from trashing him. If he really is married and still went on a dating show, getting all tangled up with Jiang Chuyu and openly cheating on his spouse, he's clearly no decent person. We don't even need to stir things up. People online have already passed judgment on him."

"What exactly is he trying to do now?"

Song Jincheng could not help frowning at the mention of Ye Yizhou. This time, he could clearly feel that Ye Yizhou was slipping out of his control. "We hadn't heard anything beforehand. Why did he suddenly turn up on a dating show, only to stop appearing afterward?"

"I don't know what deal Ye Yizhou made with Director Ji. I watched the livestream, and Director Ji seemed to need a favor from him."

Li Pingqi could not figure that part out either, but it was not important. What mattered was this: "Director Ji confirmed on the livestream that Ye Yizhou has a first love he's never gotten over, but that person isn't you. And now Ye Yizhou has actually won him over. That's very bad for you."

"I watched that livestream clip online. Ye Yizhou was the one who said he'd won him over, and he was the one who said he was married. Who can prove any of it?"

Song Jincheng was a little irritated. A tool he had always held in the palm of his hand had suddenly developed a will of his own. It was infuriating.

"Now that you're on this dating show, your main job is to promote your pairing with Jiang Chuyu. Take advantage of your pairing's popularity to climb higher, so it'll be easier to turn those shipping fans into your solo fans later."

"I don't know if Jiang Chuyu is genuinely stupid or doing it on purpose. He barely cooperates with the fan service."

Song Jincheng's brows knitted again without his realizing it. Nothing seemed to be going his way lately.

"Whether he cooperates or not, just stick close to him. As for how people interpret those sweet moments, I'll hire paid commenters to steer them. It's all for the buzz and for converting shipping fans into solo fans later anyway. Whether Jiang Chuyu cooperates doesn't matter. With the livestream cameras on him, he still has to keep up basic appearances. I don't believe he'd actually burn bridges."

Li Pingqi had seen this sort of situation countless times and had plenty of ways to handle it. "Ye Yizhou has been acting a little crazy lately. He dares to say anything on the livestream, and he's getting hard to keep in line. I suggest we drop him outright."

"We're just letting him off like that?"

Li Pingqi raised an eyebrow and said viciously, "By dropping him, of course I mean destroying him. Why would we leave ourselves a problem down the road?"

"Do you have some crucial dirt on him?" Song Jincheng immediately caught his manager's meaning.

"Yes. A paparazzo I'm on good terms with caught Ye Yizhou getting tangled up with an older man and getting into a luxury car after he disappeared from the dating show. He didn't get a clear shot of who the older man was, but Ye Yizhou's face is crystal clear."

Li Pingqi laughed, his smile vicious. "This time, we'll bury Ye Yizhou for good. A useless tool should disappear from the entertainment industry."

"You mean Ye Yizhou found himself a rich older man?"

A trace of disgust flashed through Song Jincheng's eyes. Ye Yizhou really did have a beautiful face, but there was something wrong with his personality and his brain. If only his public persona in the industry were as beautiful as his looks, being with Ye Yizhou would not have been a bad thing.

He simply had not expected Ye Yizhou to sink this low in the end.

"It doesn't matter whether he did or not. If we say he did, then he did." Li Pingqi had played this game of twisting the truth plenty of times.

"Didn't you say that older man Ye Yizhou found drives a luxury car? Could he be someone important? Will we offend him by doing this?"

"Ye Yizhou was openly trying to cheat on him on a dating show. Everyone saw it. How can that count as us spreading rumors? What does it have to do with us? How would we be offending anyone?"

Li Pingqi did not care about that at all, nor did he see any problem with it. "All right, I'll handle these things. Just focus on the dating show. What really matters is how you can get the most attention and gain the most fans from it."

"Has my next drama been settled?"

Song Jincheng knew very well that having actual work to his name was what truly counted. Appearing on variety shows was just a way to maintain his popularity and keep people talking, attracting investors who would send scripts his way.

"You were being considered for the male lead in a male-centered period drama adapted from an IP, and the investors were very happy with you too. I don't know what happened, but suddenly there's been no word. I'm still asking around. It's a great project. Landing this drama would definitely move you up another tier in the industry."

Mentioning this left Li Pingqi a little worried too. He raised a hand and patted Song Jincheng's shoulder reassuringly. "You know what I'm capable of. I'll definitely land this project for you."

Only then did Song Jincheng nod, slightly reassured, and close his eyes to rest for a while.

With his phone in hand, Li Pingqi sent texts and voice messages and made calls, starting to lay the groundwork, hire paid commenters, and coordinate with marketing accounts, aiming to bury Ye Yizhou with a single video.

Li Pingqi moved quickly. At eleven that night, the hashtag #YeYizhouTakenAwayFromDatingShowByNewlywedHusband# shot straight to number one on the trending searches.

The popular post under the hashtag was a video taken at noon on the day of the dating show's livestream. Ye Yizhou and a man in a suit and dress shoes came out of a restaurant, tugging at each other, before Ye Yizhou was pulled into a car.

It lined up perfectly with the fact that Ye Yizhou had never appeared on the dating show again afterward.

Rumors ran rampant that Ye Yizhou had been forcibly taken away because he had openly flirted with other men on the dating show, blatantly cheating on his newlywed husband.

At eleven at night, plenty of night owls were still awake, and their appetite for gossip sent the topic exploding in popularity.