Ms. Lu's Family Must Run a Restaurant

Lu Xingluo was furious, her chest heaving as she nearly struggled to catch her breath.

Lu Junjia hurried over to support her. "Sis, sit down and rest. Don't make yourself sick over things online."

"What the hell do you know?" Lu Xingluo shoved him away and snapped, "If I hadn't been trying to stand up for you, would Li Yi have slapped me?

"If you hadn't come up with that stupid idea, would I have posted those photos online and had all those women come after me?"

"It was clearly Li Yi's fault. Why are you blaming me, Sis? I was just worried you'd make yourself sick with anger." Lu Junjia's eyes reddened with grievance.

"Cry, cry, cry. That's all you ever do. You're completely useless..." A way to handle this suddenly occurred to Lu Xingluo, and she clapped her hands sharply. "That's it! Crying!"

"Junjia, help me record a video in a minute." Lu Xingluo handed him her phone, took some cosmetics out of her bag, and began applying makeup to make herself look wronged.

Her eyes were red, as though she had been crying for three days, and a few freshly applied drops of eye drops lingered at their corners.

"Sis, are you ready?" Lu Junjia asked, holding up the phone. "I'm about to start recording."

"Ready. Go ahead."

"Hello, everyone. I'm Lu Xingluo. Regarding the videos online, I admit to some of it. Those really were things I said back when I didn't know any better, but I truly meant no harm. Teacher Xu has always been a senior colleague I respect. I'd like to apologize to Teacher Xu here. Please forgive my inappropriate remarks in the past.

"As for stealing other people's opportunities, I've really been falsely accused. Everyone knows that although my family is wealthy, it was an article and a set of photos from a fan that first made me popular.

"If I really were the kind of person who used her influence to bully minor celebrities and steal their opportunities, why didn't I do that a few years ago? Why would I wait until I was famous?

"The director only recently contacted me about that variety show. As for why the replacement happened, I don't know either.

"With everyone attacking me like this, I feel pretty wronged myself."

Every few sentences, she wiped away her tears and sniffled. Together with her innocent, aggrieved makeup, it was easy for her to win people's sympathy.

Some people online had already been persuaded and had begun questioning the whole affair.

Although some were still attacking her, most were fairly rational. Since the situation kept taking one turn after another, everyone began investigating it from the source.

Their investigation turned up revelations from people who appeared to be members of that actress's staff, claiming that the minor actress had only secured a place on the variety show by sleeping with the assistant director.

She had later been reported, which was why she had been replaced.

A flood of other dirt about the actress suddenly surfaced as well, and the attacks immediately shifted toward that minor actress.

The minor actress's Weibo account, which had few followers to begin with, was instantly bombarded.

Lu Xingluo's rabid fans had found an outlet and tore into the minor actress with vicious abuse.

"She really is a master of changing faces." Even Li Yi had to give Lu Xingluo credit.

With just a few words, she had redirected the attacks toward an innocent person. With her large fan base behind her, all she needed was a fabricated screenshot of a staff conversation to smear someone else.

By glossing over the serious issues in her explanation of the videos, she had successfully diverted the netizens' attention.

In the novel, Lu Xingluo had gained a little fame and quite a few fans through this variety show. By acting sweet and cute, she had later become a regular on all sorts of variety shows.

Then he would give this variety show back to the person it originally belonged to!

His fingers tapped a few times, and he posted a video online using an alternate account.

The netizens' brains were about to break from all the twists. The affair kept turning, turning again, and spinning wildly, until their brains were practically being churned into soy milk.

It was high-definition surveillance footage showing Lu Xingluo suddenly starting to put on makeup after venting at home, then directing and starring in her own elaborate explanation.

It even included her phone conversation telling the PR department to fabricate the story about the minor actress sleeping with the assistant director.

[Esports Lin Pinru]: Is having been a Lu Xingluo fan going to be a stain on your record now?

[Anonymous Liu Yifei]: If she acted this well in her shows, she'd win Best Actress sooner or later. That makeup, those eye drops-I almost bought her bullshit.

[Internet Like Expert]: Liked. This is the first time I've seen such a great twist. If the film festival doesn't send you, I'm not watching!

[The Melon Patch Leaping-about Chā]: This drama is so juicy I don't even want to sleep. Ms. Lu's family must run a restaurant, with all those pots of blame she's tossing around in both hands. She put on innocent-looking makeup, added a few eye drops, and dragged an innocent minor actress in to take the bullets for her. I really feel for that poor girl.

[I Get Beaten Up Every Time I Jungle]: The more you think about it, the scarier it gets. What was she trying to do with that first Weibo post? Get everyone to cyberbully that relative of hers? People like this are terrifying. I'm starting to suspect she just wanted to drive her relative away and deliberately put on makeup to look like she'd been beaten.

As the online buzz soared, another report about that minor actress came out.

It presented evidence explaining that the minor actress could originally have become a huge hit through an idol drama, but she had accidentally taken the last private room at a restaurant in the film studio complex, leaving Lu Xingluo without a place to eat and making her hold a grudge.

She had deliberately put out press releases disparaging the minor actress's acting and spread rumors that she had obtained her role through improper means, leaving someone who could have become famous stuck in lukewarm obscurity.

Even this variety show, which could have turned her career around, had been snatched away with just a few words from Lu Xingluo.

Casual fans who felt sorry for the minor actress, viewers who had become fans through her drama, and her own fans all stepped forward to defend her, clamoring for Lu Xingluo to give the variety show back.

The uproar grew so great that even the variety show's director had to come forward, terminating the contract with Lu Xingluo overnight.

To quell the netizens' anger, the director also signed the original minor actress back on.

This time, it was a resounding victory for the internet, with Lu Xingluo alone receiving a vicious torrent of abuse.

Her Weibo followers dropped by tens of thousands at a time. She lost hundreds of thousands in a single night.

"That's impossible. Why would a hacker break into our home surveillance system?" Lu Xingluo was scared out of her wits. She no longer even dared to look at her phone. The comments were full of people calling her a drama queen, a master chef of blame-shifting, and a face-changing expert.

Abuse came flooding at her from every direction. It was far more than a major star like her, who enjoyed being adored, could bear.

"Sis, I've already asked Dad to get security personnel to check our home surveillance system. Don't be scared," Lu Junjia comforted her from beside her. "The online stuff will blow over soon. As long as we don't look at it, once something else big happens, this will get buried. You'll still be the Nation's Daughter."

"Really?" Lu Xingluo's face was covered in tears, and her body trembled. Thinking of the abuse chilled her all over.

"Really," Lu Junjia said.

"But every time I think about it, I'm so scared. The things they say are so vile." Crying, Lu Xingluo clutched the cushion in her arms, deeply experiencing the power of cyberbullying.

Verbal attacks were often more damaging than physical injuries. They lingered in your mind every moment, impossible to forget even when you wanted to.

"Serves you right!" Looking at the people downstairs, Li Yi sneered.