Chapter 212 - "She is the daughter of Fang JunRong, CEO of Mei Fang." (1)
He hadn't been able to remain happy for too long and the few posts by Fang JunRong on Weibo was like a big bucket of ice water doused on him. He would never had imagined that the luxurious car belonged to Fang JunRong and the two girls were her daughters. As an internet influence, he was well aware of who Fang JunRong was and that he did not stand a chance against her.
Everything happened so quickly that he didn't even have the chance to try and salvage the situation before Fang JunRong's teams of lawyers had jumped into actions and sent him letters stating that they would be taking him to court under no uncertain terms.
They were coming at him aggressively and they meant business. Unfortunately, he had enlisted the help of many water army for the sake of attention and his article had already been reposted tens of thousands of times. He even exposed the identities of the girls and had severely impacted their lives. He frantically reached out to his friends for help.
His friends merely informed him that there might even be jail times in the worst-case scenario.
Zhu Wen was still young and his life had just begun. He didn't want to go to jail or have a criminal record.
He frantically tried to reach the person who had paid him for this job but, unfortunately, he had not heard a word back.
"*#@(!"
He turned pale sitting in front of his computer. Was the other person's intention to push all the responsibilities onto him and stay clear of it himself? Had he not been lied to and mislead, this would never have happened. He would never had offended Fang JunRong to the point that he would be sued.
No, he wasn't going to just sit here while the world crumbled around him. Zhu Wen took a deep breath and logged into his account. He had already lost tens and thousands of fans. It may not seem like a significant amount but they were all active fans! All these individuals had blocked him because of this incident. All sorts of nasty words could be found on the bottom of his page. He had used the public opinion in his advantage and pointed it at those that he wanted to attack in the past and had been very proud of his own ability to do so. Finally, these attacks were now directed at him.
He finally seemed to be getting a taste what those who had been attacked by him had gone through. A few looks at those nasty words were enough to make one feel depressing and started to question one's self worth.
He closed his eyes to stop himself from looking at those comments. When he opened his eyes up again, he deleted the two articles that he had posted and drafted an official announcement. He would rather give up on this account than to spend a few years in jail.
[I am The Crayon Who Doesn't Know How to Lie and I want to take this opportunity to apologize to my fans and the public. I was paid to write these two articles and I did not do my due diligent in looking into the truth before I published the articles. My actions had negatively impacted the reputations of two innocent girls...]
After his very eloquent apology, he straight up posted the contact and bank account information of the person who had hired him. The name on the bank account was Gong YiLin. He had no idea whether that was his real name or not but, now that he had posted all of the information, they should be able to track down who it was behind this.
After he had done all those, he listened to his friends' advice and turned himself in at the police station hoping for a lighter sentencing.
He had done all that he could. There was no reason for him to go down with the other person and hopefully what he had done would be sufficient to exonerate him.
His letter of apology had, as expected, stirred up a lot of ruckus. This was probably the first internet influencer who had openly admitted to accepting money to write articles. As Zhu Wen did not have a team working for him, he was not able to place the blame on anyone else and make this less messy for himself.
Chapter 213 - "She is the daughter of Fang JunRong, CEO of Mei Fang." (2)
It didn't take long for the netizens to follow the lead to Gong YiLin. Some of the students at City S University even stood up and attested that Gong YiLin was a suitor of Li XinYun. He wasn't able to get the girl and, as such, started the scandal purposefully.
Even Li JinRong, the school senior who posted about Li XinYun on their school forum wasn't able to handle the public opinion and told on Gong YiLin!
Gong YiLin had become infamous in a way that he had never expected.
Everybody expressed that his behavior of paying for for-profit internet accounts to slam someone on the internet when his pursuing had failed was too low. And many of the netizens who were clouted before now turned and took it out on him.
The ones with clear minds exposed her Weibo and posted all sort of nasty messages under his account. Some who were more direct even called up Gong YiLin's cellphone and taught him all sorts of phrases used to insult others in the Chinese language.
***
Gong YiLin stared at his computer screen, petrified. It had all happened so quickly. So quickly that he didn't even have a chance to stop it, like an animal that had fallen into a trap.
He was done for.
That was all he could think about. His life was over for all intents and purposes. His mistake had finally backfired on him. He never expected that his senior at school and those internet influencers would have given him up so easily, pushing him to the forefront and letting him bathe in everyone's contempt looks. He wasn't careful enough at the time. He never should have reached out to them in person. Now he couldn't even place the blame onto someone else.
Fang JunRong had in no uncertain terms expressed that she would be pursuing the matters to the fullest extent of the law on Weibo. Li XinYun, too, had posted on the school forum, scolded him for his behavior, and asked him to stand up and explain his actions. All the students were talking about it and, many of the girls who were fond of him before expressed that they were wrong and never expected him to be such a offensive individual.
He just wasn't thinking straight for a moment in time. Was this necessary? Would he had made such a mistaken had Li XinYun, for a girl as rich as she was, not be so low-key? And, had Fang JunRong, a CEO who was loaded as she was, went to adopt a girl from some club, he would never have made a mistake like that. The mother and daughter were partly responsible for his misunderstanding.
Running his hands through his hand, his hair now resembled a bird's nest. He had a splitting headache.
All of a sudden, his room door was pushed open and his father walked in side, frowning.
"Why was your cellphone off this entire time?" Father Gong looked solemn and angry.
With a guilty conscience, Gong YiLin said, "It ran out of juice."
His father didn't like going onto the internet so he might not have found out what was going on just yet. He wasn't sure if anyone else would have clued his father in.
Father Gong stared at him intensely and said, "Your school just called me and said that you tried to smear a fellow student and that there will be a major demerit on your record. What have you done?" He had been proud of his son in the past. He was, after all, being able to get into City S University. He was his pride. It had only been one semester and he had a demerit already? How did he do that?
Gong YiLin knew his father well. His outward appearance and other gains were very important to him.
His mouth opened and close and, finally, after a long while, he said, "I was chasing after a female student but I never succeeded. I was upset over it so I asked someone to post on the forum that she is a kept woman with an employer and she found out about it. That was the reason the school decided to give me a demerit."
Chapter 214 - "She is the daughter of Fang JunRong, CEO of Mei Fang." (3)
Father Gong was infuriated. He poked right at Gong YiLin's forehead with his finger and said, "How did you get caught doing something like that? What good are you? Go figure out a way to have the demerit removed from your record! I can afford scandal like that!" He was more concerned that his son was caught than him actually committing the act. How stupid was him?
Now that he had it figured out, Father Gong wasn't too bothered by it. Any problems that could be solved with money was not a problem. And their family happened to be rich.
"Did you apologize? What did they say?"
Gong YiLin's voice became even weaker than before. "Their family doesn't need money. They refused to accept my apology and are going to sue me for libel.
Father Gong was now upset. "Can they be as wealthy as us? Who do they think they are to be refusing to accept your apology? I have a few friends that I can talk to. Do they really think we are that helpless?"
Gong YiLin realized that he couldn't keep the secret for much longer. He gritted his teeth and decided to be out with it. "The female student at school is the daughter of Fang JunRong, the CEO of Meifang Corporation."
Father Gong's look froze instantly and he almost questioned what he had just heard. Staring at his youngest son, he asked, "Are you sure about that?" Their entire family assets combined did not measure up to one-tenth that of Meifang's. They were not even on the same level. Their family business, too, was in the cosmetics area and they had been wanting to work with Meifang but had yet to figure out a way to do so.
And now, his son, like an idiot, decided to smear Fang JunRong's daughter online?
His chest rose and fell from heaving. He had always been the one who loved to make fun of how his friends' sons loved to cause trouble and dragged their fathers down with them and he would brag about how his son was attending a prestigious college. And, now, his son had just handed him such a "pleasant surprise" out of the blue.
With a savage look on his, Father Gong finally failed to stop himself and slapped his son across his face. He had struck him so hard that his son's cheek had swollen up immediately. So much that he could barely feel the pain.
"You dumbass!"
***
Li XinYun looked down at the chat in Penquin. Ever since her mother had published the announcement, the discussions in the school forum had exploded. Everybody expressed that they couldn't believe there was a real White, Rich, and Pretty hidden among them. After they had looked up Fang JunRong online, they all came crawling back. Many even joked about whether Li XinYun needed more ornaments to adorn her thighs. (see )
Gong YiLin's action had a bigger negative impact. Not only did he attempted to smear her reputation maliciously to retaliate, he also hurt the school's reputation in the process. As such, the announcement from the school's end came particularly fast. Gong YiLin was to get a demerit over this incident and to apologize to Li XinYun. As for Li Jinrong, he received a warning.
Li XinYun was quite pleased with the outcome.
The slew of friend's requests that she saw made her frown. She has had a lot of request in the last few days. She had ignored the lion share of them. Many of these were from Gong YiLin's friends and some of them even asked her friends.
Mainly they wanted to ask Li XinYun's family to call off the warning for Gong YiLin. After all, a criminal record was a lot for a college student.
"YiLin has already learned his lesson. Please be the bigger person and forgive him just this once. He will never do this again."
"You had already clarified about this and this will barely have any effects on you. Why would want to take matters so far?"
"YiLin really isn't a bad person. He is a good friend and has always been nice to his fellow classmates. He just didn't think clearly this one time. Give him a second chance, please."
Pfft! He was a nice guy? How shameless were these people to be able to associate someone like him with such a word?