Chapter 15

The four major scandals that contemporary public figures fear the most—cheating, soliciting prostitutes, drug use, and plagiarism—once tainted, it’s hard to escape the stigma.

Zhao Xiaorou had everything prepared: sweet words from chat records, shopping and consumption records, and evidence taken by her assistant. All of it was posted on long images, with a selfie of the influencer still somewhat recognizable. It was a hammering blow to Wang Guangming’s reputation.

Zhao Xiaorou rented a place in Xafei Garden, radiating from Changshu Road, Huaihai Road, and the Shanghai Library, with the romantic charm of the French Concession. It was perfect for street photography and high enough to avoid the noise of termites. Much more practical than the old Western-style houses.

Each building in the complex had different lighting, and she had rented the A building, which faced west. The living room had numerous supplementary lights, and the place always had a damp smell due to all the things.

Zhao Xiaorou didn’t mind. She liked the area—plenty of boutiques and foreigners, allowing her to temporarily escape the inertia of life.

In her spare time, to unwind, she’d slip into the new high heels she had bought and walk to 624 Changle Street in the middle of the night, standing outside for a drink, just to feel the cool city breeze.

The 150-square-meter apartment had three rooms, two of which were storage rooms. During busy seasons, the living room was piled with gift boxes and delivery bags, leaving little space on the sofa.

Every week, Zhao Xiaorou filmed unboxing videos and gave gifts to her fans. Hu Xiu often helped pack deliveries, and now she habitually sat in front of the delivery orders, quickly folding the airplane boxes.

Zhao Xiaorou walked around the room, casually saying: “Wang Guangming hasn’t come back to pack his stuff. We’ll meet in Beijing tomorrow.”

“What if he refuses to divorce you?”

“I have a way, I just couldn’t explain it in the car. Wang Guangming has a strange habit—he loves recording videos and audios and storing them in hidden albums, like a collector. So, anything he doesn’t want people to know, I’ve backed up. And there’s evidence that could land him directly in jail. I won’t say more until the end. But this dirty trick, I can’t let Li Ai know, nor do I want to. I always want to be a good person in front of him.”

Hu Xiu then realized that in the rearview mirror, Li Ai could see Zhao Xiaorou crying. This woman had just played the victim in front of Li Ai and had succeeded in the role.

Zhao Xiaorou handed her a can of cola: “Although I always create a persona, don’t take Wang Guangming’s words to heart. What we have between us is genuine.”

“Of course…”

The two opened the can of cola, and the only sound in the living room was the fizzing of carbonation.

At 3 a.m., Zhao Xiaorou opened her computer. The desktop was full of various Excel and Word documents. She had once said that these were all plans Wang Guangming stayed up late working on. The seemingly complex blueprints were created bit by bit by Wang Guangming and her, with planning, topics, business, and division of labor... dividing assets wouldn’t be easy.

Hu Xiu didn’t know what would happen to Zhao Xiaorou in the future, but at this moment, she was likely facing a career earthquake.

Zhao Xiaorou didn’t show much reaction, simply sitting on the carpet waiting for the delivery orders to print: “The gifts I prepare for my fans are all carefully chosen. What do you think? The ones I gave to Qin Xiaoyi were also pretty good.

It’s a pity you didn’t dare to send them, and now they’re going to Wang Guangming’s internet celebrity harem. Did you interact with Qin Xiaoyi today? I forgot to ask.”

“He told me to remember him today.”

Zhao Xiaorou didn’t look at her: “I told you those light boards would work, didn’t I?”

The overflowing happiness seemed to have diluted a little. Hu Xiu changed the topic: “What did Wang Guangming say earlier that you wanted to tell me?”

“He said Qian Jinxin added other women on WeChat behind your back—the one who was speaking Shanghainese earlier.”

“It’s nothing big. In his eyes, do I have to match with a man like that, or else I’d be at a loss?”

Saying this, Hu Xiu couldn’t help but laugh. She took out her phone and saw a message from Qian Jinxin: “Miss Hu, today I am very, very angry. Brother Guangming’s invitation was originally to make his wife happy, and you and I were just accompanying. But because of you, this serious incident happened.

You’ve been ambiguous with the male actor in the play, and I saw it several times, which was extremely uncouth.

A woman like you, at your age, still has no concept of family, acting recklessly. A girl like you are a disgrace to a prestigious university.

You and your friend are both troublemakers, completely disrespecting men and not caring about their reputation.

I will report this to your father. As for you, you are not my ideal marriage candidate.”

“Brother Guangming” indeed. Hu Xiu handed the phone to Zhao Xiaorou. Zhao Xiaorou glanced at it, snatched the phone, and pressed the voice message button to curse: “You want your girlfriend to go to a woman’s virtue class? What moral blackmail? Yang Yongxin wouldn’t even bother with you.

Hu Xiu is just too normal, too easy-going. You don’t need to tell her father, I’ll tell you—men like you should stay single for a few more years. Let your ingrained patriarchal mindset grow to perfection. Eventually, you won’t need a Confucius temple anymore; it’ll just be a shrine to you. Got it?”

She let go and sent the message, but a red exclamation mark appeared beside it. Hu Xiu stared at the screen for a while: “Damn, he actually blocked me?”

“He added a Shanghai woman on WeChat, so of course, he doesn’t need you anymore. What he needs is to buy property in the city center of Shanghai and become a proud Shanghai citizen. Hu Xiu, you’re not qualified to be his steppingstone.”

“That son of a—” Hu Xiu stood up. “I feel so relieved!”

“Is that it? If it were me, I’d definitely add him back and continue cursing him. Girls who can marry men like him are those with such good manners and no room to speak. Do you know why the domestic violence center in Shenyang only accepts men?”

“Because Northeast women are righteous and won’t let men like that see the light of day.”

“The world is tough. If strangers can step on you, what does that show? It means you have to reverse-psychologize men like him, stay forever young, and always speak harshly.”

Zhao Xiaorou’s mother was a true Northeast woman who had been married in the Northwest for thirty years, and her husband was thoroughly disciplined.

It’s said that on their first meal together, she flipped the table at his parents’ house, broke the thermos again and again during arguments, and even shoved the inner liner into his father’s mouth.

Hu Xiu looked at Zhao Xiaorou, who didn’t seem tired at all, and yawned: “Why don’t you do this to Wang Guangming? You two are still planning to act like a loving couple tomorrow?”

“For someone like him who loves to act, the best revenge is to remain unmoved and be independently beautiful.

I’m still beautiful and young, but today, I’m preparing to play the role of a worn-out and wronged wife.”

At five in the morning, Zhao Xiaorou looked at her dark circles in the mirror under the faint light of dawn: “Arguing with him would ruin my sweet, feminine image. I don’t want to leave a black picture for the perverted section. I have to outwit him.”

After a sleepless night, Hu Xiu went straight to the hospital. Staring at her swollen, tired eyes for eight hours, she saw some gossip on Weibo—

A beauty brand’s popup store, with photos of internet celebrities slowly being revealed, and Zhao Xiaorou’s own photos depicting exhaustion, while others’ side shots showed her walking with a dazed expression.

This time, she didn’t film a vlog (Zhao Xiaorou always believed vlogs were the trend to gain followers). Compared to other bloggers who looked radiant with smoothed knees, Zhao Xiaorou looked like a regular person dragged into a major event, confused and full of mistakes.

Wang Guangming had his arm around Zhao Xiaorou’s waist all the way. In the photos he posted on his own Weibo, although Zhao Xiaorou didn’t look at the camera, her face had no flaws, and her dark circles and tear lines were retouched clean.

But she didn’t retouch any more photos and didn’t talk much. Her official Weibo posts lacked soul, and the comments and shares were all strange.

Remembering what Zhao Xiaorou said about using intelligence, Hu Xiu couldn’t focus on the translation materials in front of her, just waiting for Zhao Xiaorou to make her move.

She had booked a midnight showing of “Snowpiercer,” and before that, she waited in the office for news from Zhao Xiaorou. Once she got the message, she would go to the show and be at ease for the day.

There were twenty pages of technical terms for the academic conference, and it wasn’t easy to memorize them all. The sooner she settled down, the sooner she could enter the zone—

How she wished that Zhao Xiaorou’s day would go smoothly, that Qin Xiao Yi was fine, and that they could interact happily.

Not long after, Zhao Xiaorou sent a message in the group: “I’ve posted a Weibo. I shouldn’t take any promotions this month. I’m getting a divorce from Wang Guangming. If he doesn’t agree, I’ll keep exposing him.”

When Hu Xiu clicked on it, the shares were already in the thousands and were still spreading.

The “hammer” was the gossip that netizens loved most—a weighty piece of evidence. In Zhao Xiaorou’s Weibo post, her heartfelt mini-essay was paired with a timeline of Wang Guangming’s affair during the marriage.

The pictures were clear, showing Wang Guangming complaining behind Zhao Xiaorou’s back that at 27, she was an old woman, that sharing a bed was unbearable, and that he wished he could get stuck in traffic and not come home. Every time, he had to rely on acting, but they needed to stay together to make more money.

As for Zhao Xiaorou’s divorce message, it was a perfect example of a public relations piece, with no spelling errors. The theme of the deceived happy wife was carried out to the end, with a strategy of retreating to advance—it’s chilling when you think about it.

“Recently, I will be handling the divorce procedures with Wang Guangming. From the age of 25 until now, I sincerely believed that he was the one who would make me happy for life. But now, he has cheated. As someone who believes in love and responsibility, I cannot allow this sham relationship to taint my pure belief in love. Fans who watched my videos know that Wang Guangming and I had a flash marriage when I started my first job. I admired his talent and even took the initiative to propose marriage. When I knelt on the Bund and pulled out the ring, he immediately knelt as well, saying that such a thing shouldn’t be done by a girl. After we got married, I became a fashion and lifestyle blogger, and my success today is largely thanks to him. In the first year of our marriage, I noticed that Wang Guangming liked to rest in the car. At first, I thought it was a man’s personal space, and that marriage required some freedom, so I didn’t interfere. I even mentioned on Weibo that I chose the Mercedes because we had collaborated with them, and the car had a large, practical space. Later, he often didn’t come home. It was like I was possessed—I opened his phone for the first time and the last. It turned out that the girls hidden in his WeChat were more numerous than his business partners. PR gifts mysteriously disappeared, and I found out that he had been giving them to younger women. He liked to store secret videos in a hidden album. That day, I trembled as I opened it—hotel bookings, movie tickets, trips to duty-free shops in Sanya... the receipts were even charged to the company account... There was a strange smell in my car before, and he told me it was perfume—Liberation Orange County’s Passion Spray. People who knew the scent would understand, and I actually believed him. The specific chat records and timeline are in the long image, along with audio and video, which I’ll release selectively. What’s more terrifying than losing something is the anticipation of loss. The process of digesting betrayal, accepting that he no longer loves me, is a slow, torturous process. I cried so many nights. You say you haven’t fallen for someone else, but crying will eventually annoy you. How can you repeatedly claim to love me in front of the camera, but once the camera is off, you disappear without a trace? You lied to me, saying you were just working. Did those girls enjoy being mistresses, or were they simply in love with you without knowing? The most painful stage is already over. Please wish me a smooth divorce ahead.”

Hu Xiu couldn’t find fault with this public relations statement. The four most dreaded scandals for modern public figures—cheating, prostitution, drug use, and plagiarism—once involved, it’s difficult to escape being stigmatized.

And Zhao Xiaorou’s organized chat records, sweet words, shopping and consumption records, along with evidence from her assistant’s candid camera, are all in the long image. Even the selfies of the influencers are still recognizable, a direct hammer to Wang Guangming’s reputation.

She sat in the Snowpiercer lounge, seriously thinking. Zhao Xiaorou’s three years of obedient married life—was it for career focus or acting? There was truly no evidence of infidelity. She handled everything both in public and private perfectly, leaving Wang Guangming no room for rebuttal.

If it was all an act, Zhao Xiaorou could directly replace Sun Honglei in “Hidden 2.”

She wasn’t doing well either. After all, the latest feedback from the group chat showed both phones were flooded with messages, and calls from her parents had come.

In their small group, Li Ai didn’t speak, but Hu Xiu could almost feel his anger through the screen—he definitely hadn’t expected Zhao Xiaorou, who had been carefree and laughing in REGARD, to be suffering so much privately.

“This is about to start. The train will soon arrive in Rongcheng. Please wait in an orderly fashion on the platform.”

The iron door clanged, and from a distance, Qin Xiaoyi walked over. The sound of his leather shoes struck Hu Xiu’s heart. For some reason, she vaguely felt that today’s Qin Xiaoyi was different from usual—not just the scar on his face.

“Thank you for waiting, I am Qin Xiaoyi, the financial minister of Rongcheng. Please follow me.”