In the evening at a small villa near the West Lake.
This villa might be small but it was only a hundred meters away from the West Lake.
The second floor of that villa gave a beautiful view of the West Lake every day.
The tired Ning Yiqiu lay comfortably and lazily on the couch after a shower and browsed Weibo.
*Ding!*
A messenger app notification resounded.
As one of the four biggest female superstars in the entertainment industry of China, Ning Yiqiu naturally had multiple cellphones.
The one she was holding was for her personal use. She had her family members and agents on it but also some friends during her childhood to now.
Thus, the message she received was naturally not some advertisement proposition.
She opened Wechat to take a look and found out it was sent by Ji Xiaoyou a classmate and friend from her junior high and high school.
"Qiuqiu, quickly take a look at this article. It's so good it made me cry~~"
Below the message was a link to the website of Qiantang Evening News to the article named 'A Bowl of Plain Noodle'.
The subscription for the Qiantang Evening News' on the website wasn't expensive and was only 5 yuan a month. Many people aged around 30-40 were too lazy to buy the newspaper so they brought the subscription.
As someone from Lin'an, Ning Yiqiu also subscribed to it but rarely looked at it.
Seeing it was her good friend who had recommended it, she opened the link since she was bored and had nothing to do.
"The busiest time of the year for the small noodle shop was the New Year's eve.
On the New Year's Eve of 2002, in the small noodle shop at Lin'an city, Mingde alley, the boss Shui Qingshang and his wife were busy from morning till night..."
Ning Yiqiu usually read her script very carefully and slowly, she did the same for the article.
She read for half hour the five thousand words article before finishing it.
She had tears on her by the time she finished it.
But she felt that it wasn't enough as she went back and read it a second time.
As the result, she was touch from the bottom of her heart as she cried softly.
Don't be doubtful.
Every good actor must be very emotional people.
Especially the actresses. Most of them get very into the role to play the role well.
It was easy for them to become schizophrenic and become more sentimental after playing so many roles and impersonating so many people.
Ni Yiqiu recovery ability wasn't bad as she would take time off every time after she finished a movie and slowly get off her role.
Now her sensitive heart was stirred up with emotions by 'A Bowl of Plain Noodle'.
The tears had blurred her eyes after reading it twice.
The difficulty of life and the beauty of human nature, these two emotions crossed in a single small noodle shop, it gave people such warm and beautiful feeling.
Ning Yiqiu felt excited and took another phone on the table before sending a message to her circles of friends.
"I recommend everybody to take a look at 'A Bowl of Plain Noodle' at Qiantang Evening News. Teacher Chu wrote it so well that it even made me cry~"
Below the message was a link to the Qiantang Evening News.
This phone's Wechat contained her classmates, friend, actors she knew and so on.
Everyone would share some fun things to his family or friend circles. But Ning Yiqiu usually just surfed and like but didn't comment much.
Hence when her friends saw she posted something, someone immediately replied.
"What happened? The Queen cried?" (TLN: the people there called Ning Yiqiu影后 which mean Movie Queen, i shortened it to queen.)
"Oh, this needs a subscription! I'll give face to the queen and subscribe!"
"Is it good? If it isn't good, you have to treat us tomorrow!"
"En, I've already read it but I can't express how I feel yet, I need to read it one more time."
"Buhu~ Bad sister Qiu, why did you recommend this story? You made people cry~"
"Share! Share! We shouldn't enjoy alone, we need to let everybody see this story!"
"Right, I want to show it to my company chat group."
"..."
Half an hour later, thousands of comments appeared in Ning Yiqiu chat group.
This wasn't all as people shared the story as they all thought they shouldn't be the only cry.
"This made the Queen Ning Yiqiu, come and check it out!"
"Ning Yiqiu recommend 'A Bowl of Plain Noodle', it's totally worth the five yuan!"
"You will regret it if you don't read it, even Ning Yiqiu cried after seeing it!"
These reposted the article with comment like that amongst their friends and rose everybody up.
Among the four movies queens, Ning Yiqiu was an actress with a big presence and usually gave left people with a good impression. It was very rare for here to recommend anything, so there were of course endless people who were willing to see it.
In this world, there were two social platforms that were the most important to the Chinese people.
One was the more private Wechat.
Two was the more public Weibo.
Generally speaking, these two could be used together.
Most of Weibo's post could reach the friends circles.
The interesting discussion or picture in chat groups could also been screenshot to a Weibo post.
For example, it didn't take long for Ning Yiqiu chat group's post to find themselves on Weibo and those 3000 fans that went full Sherlock Holmes and spread exaggerated titles.
"Come and watch, the reason that made a movie queen in tears and unable to sleep, it was..."
Even at 10 o'clock at night, this post attracted more than 6 million views in fifteen minutes.
A group of people insulted him in the comments.
"Bastard! I thought it was something real!"
"Show yourself! I'll fling some shit to your face you gossip blogger! You scared me to death!"
"Qiuqiu was touched to that point by a story? How exaggerated can you be?"
"Right! I can't stand this blogger! You are too much!"
"Haha! It's trending now and made a huge buzz. I wonder if Xiao Wu will admit his wrongdoing tomorrow?"
...
However after ten minutes, the discussion changed.
"Weird, what you care about are this hors subject discussion, shouldn't you care about what kind of story made the Queen in tears?"
"HAha! I'm from Lin'an, Qiuqiu's hometown. I already read this story before and it's great! It made me cry too!"
"I'll check it! Fuck, it needs a subscription? Did Qiuqiu receive money?"
"Scram you poor shit! I already took the five yuan subscription and my body is still shaking after reading it! it's so good! So touching!"
"I also read it. I called my friend in Lin'an and there's really a small noodle shop at Mingde alley! I already have booked a ticket, I'm flying there to check! Nobody can't stop me!"
"Wow, let me give this Lord a bow, Lord can you take me with you? I lack the plane ticket money."
"I'm in Huhai, I'm going to take the train tomorrow morning!"
"Add me! I'm from Suzhou!""Nephews! Let's go together~" (it was actually written little brother but I put Nephew, it's just sound more funny.)