Chapter 45

Chapter 45

The development of the incident was a bit absurd.

At first, netizens hadn't focused their efforts on attacking Su Xingyao, only cursing him on a small scale.

However, that night, someone directly hacked into Su Xingyao's Weibo account.

Hacking an account isn't exactly honorable, so the person involved initially only chatted and leaked the information in a small forum.

The person claimed that they initially didn't believe a star could experience such hardship and still appear so sunny on the show.

Having never experienced cyberbullying, they directly hacked into the other party's Weibo to see just how vile the comments were.

After actually reading the private messages in Su Xingyao's Weibo, they glanced a few times and couldn't bear to look any further.

Because the content of the private messages was incredibly vile, and it had been ongoing for years.

Su Xingyao had been the center of attention these past few days, so even in the most niche forums, mentioning this incident naturally led to many people questioning the hacker.

Some haters even accused the hacker of being part of Su Xingyao's fan army, taking this opportunity to play the victim and gain fans.

The hacker, having a temper, got angry when they heard this and recorded Su Xingyao's login info and private messages and posted them online.

As soon as the video dropped, netizens rushed to watch it.

Then everyone discovered that when Su Xingyao first debuted, he often logged into Weibo to post some daily updates.

But gradually, he logged into Weibo less and less frequently.

Later, he didn't log in for nearly two years.

After the login information, the hacker also released a recording that lasted almost three minutes of Su Xingyao's Weibo private messages.

In the video, the person scrolled through the content very quickly, but the full-screen personal attacks were not affected by the speed. Every time you paused, you could see the haters' endless stream of unique insults.

Netizens were initially shocked that Su Xingyao's pinned Weibo post had been cursed over a million times.

But after watching this recording, they realized that the cyberbullying Su Xingyao endured was far worse than they had ever imagined.

After all, those million-plus comments were exposed to the public, visible to everyone.

So even though they were insults and accusations, the people spewing venom at least held back a bit.

But in the private messages on the dark side of Weibo, some people were like cockroaches swarming in a sewer, not hiding their malicious thoughts at all.

All sorts of vile insults, words that could be pixelated all over the screen, were everywhere, no matter how fast the video scrolled.

"I've never seen such a flood of profanity in my life."

"I'm an old surfer, I've seen all kinds of gossip and fan wars over the years, but I can't bring myself to watch that recording again."

"Su Xingyao didn't kill or commit any crimes, why has he been cyberbullied for so many years?"

"How messed up must these people's lives be? Are you proud of pouring all your resentment onto one person?"

"The more I look at that login information, the more uncomfortable I feel. Su Xingyao was actively managing his Weibo at first, he had just debuted and was full of hope and longing for his career and future... But later he logged in less and less, and eventually stopped altogether. Putting this together with the cursed messages, I can't even imagine how his mental state has changed over the years."

"I was once chased and cursed at by some crazy fan group for three days over a small matter, those days were truly sleepless and restless, but Su Xingyao has been threatened and personally attacked for years... I can't imagine if I were in his shoes, would I be driven to suicide?"

As a bystander, my heart aches after seeing this.

"I just became a fan, and I’m already bawling my eyes out. I really can’t imagine how he has endured all these years."

"It’s just too tragic. Su Xingyao’s suffering is indescribable."

"Since his debut, he has been enduring all this. An average person would’ve been depressed by now."

"Suppressed by the company, framed by fellow artists, cyberbullied by netizens, his talents and strengths were deliberately buried and twisted... I don’t know how Su Xingyao has made it through these years, but I’m grateful that he continues to bravely appear in front of the camera, allowing me to rediscover him."

"I’m at a loss for words. Does the company even care? Yingxing is supposed to be a major company, right? I’ve heard many people praise you, but what’s the result? Your team just leaves Su Xingyao’s account abandoned and neglected? These messages could’ve been cleared by someone, but you just let them sit there for Su Xingyao to see how he’s being insulted in every possible way every time he logs in, right?"

For the first time, netizens have seen firsthand how terrifying malicious distortion and cyberbullying can be for an innocent artist.

Seeing those shocking insults, netizens are even angrier at Su Xingyao’s former company for doing nothing.

After all, they didn’t even assign someone to manage his Weibo account, nor are these messages cleaned up, deliberately making Su Xingyao see every single one, and repeatedly endure the pain of being insulted for two years...

For a management company, this is beyond dereliction of duty.

This is pure malicious neglect toward Su Xingyao.

Just as netizens were starting to suspect this, a former Yingxing employee came forward with an anonymous tip-off.

"Anyway, I’ve already left, so now I finally have the chance to tip-off. In the past, telling the truth would get me cursed, but now that everyone sees Yingxing for what it really is, surely there won’t be any brainless fans coming after me for making things up, right?

There’s so much to say, I don’t even know where to begin. I can only say that your intuition is not wrong, the atmosphere in a certain company is just that trashy. All the company’s resources go to promoting xxx alone. As for sxy? After signing, he was basically abandoned...

Saying he was left to fend for himself is being too generous. Over the years, sxy’s negative PR was never addressed, and the hate messages were never cleared. In short, they just let everyone curse sxy, allowing everyone to freely cyberbully him.

Crazy, right? I agree! But what can you do? This company basically signed sxy just to use him as a stepping stone for xxx. If you don’t believe me, go search for sxy’s past negative news and see how many of them are related to xxx... sxy’s resources were always poor and harsh when he was there. His better opportunities were just used to make xxx look good in the background, and after recording the show, he was used as a stepping stone."

As soon as this tip-off from the former employee was posted, it got thousands of replies in an hour.

Hearing about the company’s outrageous actions, everyone initially thought it was too crazy to be true.

But then, one after another, more former Yingxing employees came forward with tip-offs.

And each one of them corroborated the tip-off's claims.

Tip-off Person One:

"Haha, you think this scoop is fake? But I can prove it’s all true!! I left that dog company long ago, normal people really can’t stay there. Honestly, I quite like sxy, but there’s no way, people who are good to sxy can’t stay in this company, only those who lick another have a way out. This stupid company, for some reason, has always had a weird attitude toward sxy from top to bottom, no one in the company dares to be good to him."

Tip-off Person Two:

"Yeah, this company has no decent people. sxy is treated like he killed their whole family, from high-level to the bottom, everyone bullies him. Yes, bullies!! You think sxy’s Weibo is unattended by operations, but the key is, who dares to manage it? lyf, you know? sxy’s former manager, just because he got sxy a drama that made him slightly famous when he debuted, he was taken away by high-level and cursed for an entire afternoon... hahaha, this is sxy’s manager... he got cursed for promoting his own artist hahaha"

Tip-off Person Three:

"I can only say it’s great that sxy left yx, congratulations to him for finally turning his reputation around, he should have left long ago, staying there would only mean endless cold treatment and bullying"

Several former Yingxing employees successively came forward to support the tip-off, some even showed their previous work IDs to prove they weren’t making things up.

After reading these tip-offs, netizens felt their entire worldview was shattered.

They’ve seen all sorts of strange scoops in the entertainment industry, but this is the first time they’ve encountered a company leading such prolonged bullying of an artist.

To be thorough, netizens dug into Su Xingyao’s past resources.

Once people dug into it, the situation turned out to be exactly as the whistleblower had described.

Su Xingyao's opportunities over the past two years were pitifully scarce, almost non-existent.

Occasionally, he could land a slightly better show, but only to play second fiddle to Shen Huaixi.

For example, the previously maliciously edited variety show.

Every time Su Xingyao shared the stage with Shen Huaixi, he would inevitably be photoshopped and trashed by Shen's fans, who would then use these edits to berate him.

Subsequently, Su Xingyao would be dragged through trending black hashtags due to these inexplicable incidents.

Even though this happened repeatedly, his company never once stepped in to defend him.

Those negative labels were allowed to spread unchecked, and anyone could stand on a moral high ground to criticize Su Xingyao.

As for the long-standing negative labels related to Su Xingyao, they were scattered all over the internet, none of which were ever cleared.

Seeing this, the netizens were stunned.

What shocked them even more was comparing the only two decent opportunities Su Xingyao had since his debut.

One was a supporting role in a TV series he landed at the beginning of his career.

However, after the show, Su Xingyao's manager was summoned for a meeting by the higher-ups.

From then on, Su Xingyao's resources and reputation took a nosedive.

The other decent opportunity was appearing as a guest on "Let's Travel Together."

But this opportunity came after Su Xingyao had left Star Entertainment.

Ironically, in this live reality show, known for being the easiest to tank a celebrity's career, Su Xingyao's reputation turned around, allowing everyone to see him in a new light...

After seeing all this, even the slowest netizens could tell something fishy was going on.

"Other celebrities' reputations tank without their company's backing, but Su Xingyao's case is the exact opposite..."

"How dare those haters say Su Xingyao was dragging Star Entertainment down? Clearly, it's this lousy company that doesn't deserve Su Xingyao."

"Wow... a manager getting scolded for promoting their own artist... this really opened my eyes."

"Graduated from a top university but never got the spotlight, talented in so many ways yet no one noticed, gentle and capable but was branded as useless for so many years. This is the most absurd and ridiculous thing I've heard this year."

"If Su Xingyao's persona were under a normal company, he would have been blown up big time by now. Star Entertainment, are you so scared of Su Xingyao's success that you're going out of your way to ruin him?"

"It's hard not to say that this lousy company was deliberately suppressing and smearing Su Xingyao. Maybe they even paid for those negative trends themselves."

"Does your company have a grudge against Su Xingyao or what?"

"Truly unheard of, never seen a company so trashy and absurd to treat their artist like this."

"The whistleblower said it... this lousy company is deliberately bullying Su Xingyao from top to bottom."

"@Star Entertainment, your company is truly garbage."

"@Star Entertainment, I really can't understand, what harm would it do to you if Su Xingyao became popular? Are you sick or something?"

"Who knows if they're sick or not, but the whistleblower claims this company has been pushing Su Xingyao down to lift Shen Huaixi up."

Shen Huaixi was recently criticized for his performance on *The Voice of Heaven*.

At that time, it was revealed that he deliberately cried on the show, leading to Su Xingyao being scolded.

In this Star Entertainment incident, Shen Huaixi, who is in the same company as Su Xingyao, was exposed by former employees for deliberately stepping on Su Xingyao to climb the ladder. After criticizing Star Entertainment, netizens naturally didn’t let him off the hook either.

"No wonder you, Shen White Lotus, are so adept at stirring up drama on shows. Turns out you were used to throwing your weight around at Star Entertainment!"

"In *The Voice of Heaven*, you directly eliminated contestants who were better than you. If someone was too strong to eliminate, you resorted to all sorts of underhanded tactics to sabotage them... Su Xingyao, who is in the same company, is better-looking, more educated, more capable, and a thousand times better than you. For years, you've been using all sorts of shady methods to step on him. My god, you're just a born villain."

"How do your fans have the nerve to call Su Xingyao a loser? Isn’t the loser you?"

"Su Xingyao must have had the worst luck in the world to run into a villain like you and a trash company like Star Entertainment."

"How insecure and despicable do you have to be to resort to such lowly tactics to step on a fellow company artist?"

"Going to such lengths to suppress Su Xingyao, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?"

"What kind of connections do you have to dominate Star Entertainment like this?"

"So disgusting, just quit the industry already, you're polluting my eyes."

After suddenly learning about Su Xingyao’s plight at Star Entertainment, netizens felt outraged for him.

While they went to Su Xingyao’s criticized Weibo post to cheer him on and show their support, they also flooded Star Entertainment’s official website and Shen Huaixi’s Weibo.

Overnight, major forums and Weibo’s hot searches were flooded with netizens’ scathing criticisms of Star Entertainment.

Star Entertainment’s previously good reputation in the public eye also collapsed overnight, becoming the number one company that fans of all kinds warned against joining.

Since being massively criticized, the higher-ups at Star Entertainment have all been on edge, fearing the worst.

The PR team also worked overtime all night, too scared to sleep.

Although they had many strategies in mind, they now dared not make any PR moves regarding this matter.

Because the behind-the-scenes boss, Qin Mingchuan, upon learning of this, ordered them not to respond in any way whatsoever.

In the corner of the private room, the glow from the phone screen illuminated Qin Mingchuan’s cold face.

Earlier, Star Entertainment’s senior executive Liu Huai had laid out all the details to him.

Including the differential treatment of Shen Huaixi and Su Xingyao, as well as the various past incidents of deliberately suppressing Su Xingyao.

As someone who often writes reports, Liu Huai’s account was very detailed.

With every line Qin Mingchuan read, his expression grew colder.

The last time he spoke with Liang Yifan, he should have thoroughly investigated everything.

But for some reason, he didn’t do it then...

Even though he blamed everyone, he never doubted Shen Huaixi for a second.

His fingers casually scrolled through the webpage.

Looking at the various injustices netizens listed that Star Entertainment had inflicted on Su Xingyao, Qin Mingchuan carefully read through each and every comment from netizens criticizing them on the official website.

The more he read, the clearer Qin Mingchuan's thoughts became.

Netizens were only cursing him today.

But Su Xingyao had endured it alone for two whole years prior...

What does two years of cold-hearted bullying and cyber violence look like?

If it weren't for his own company, he wouldn't have suffered these pains.

Nearly ten empty wine glasses were already on the table in the private room.

Qin Mingchuan's friends had long noticed something was off with him. Seeing his dangerously low mood and him recklessly drinking glass after glass, they were too scared to speak.

Finally, his childhood friend Ban Yang couldn't take it anymore and stopped Qin Mingchuan from downing another full glass.

"Stop drinking, Mr. Qin. Do you want to drink yourself to death here today?"

Qin Mingchuan's drunken eyes were no longer clear, but his brows showed impatience after being stopped.

"What happened? You've been upset since you came back from making a phone call outside?"

Ban Yang only dealt with matters among the rich second generation and usually didn't care about the chaotic entertainment industry.

Moreover, Qin Mingchuan had never told anyone around him about privately setting up a company for Shen Huaixi, so except for Qin Mingchuan, no one at the table cared about the star being cursed on the hot search.

Although he didn't know these things, he clearly saw that Qin Mingchuan's mood had hit rock bottom tonight.

In fact, it wasn't just tonight...

It seemed that from a certain point, he had clearly noticed that Qin Mingchuan's state had not been very good.

"Did you have a fight with Huai Xi?"

This was the only reason Ban Yang could think of that would upset Qin Mingchuan.

Everyone around him could see that young master Qin had almost openly had a crush on him.

Ban Yang had originally intended to comfort Qin Mingchuan.

But he didn't expect that as soon as he mentioned Shen Huaixi's name, Qin Mingchuan's expression darkened even more.

Realizing he had said the wrong thing, Ban Yang immediately wisely shut his mouth, but it was already too late.

Qin Mingchuan tossed something in front of him.

It was the phone he had been clutching in his hand.

"Make a call for me."

The silent man finally spoke up.

But his voice was terribly rough.

Seeing that the person who had been in a bad mood all night was finally willing to speak, Ban Yang didn't dare to ask more and immediately grabbed the phone on the table.

"Who should I call?"

After asking this, he realized that the phone Qin Mingchuan had tossed to him wasn't locked, and the screen was on a dialing page.

It was a string of unfamiliar numbers, with a long list of call records that seemed endless.

Ban Yang estimated that Qin Mingchuan had called this number nearly twenty times tonight.

But the recipient never answered.

Just as Ban Yang realized that this number might be the reason for Qin Mingchuan's distress, he heard the man half-lying on the sofa speak again.

"Call them using your phone."

Glancing at Qin Mingchuan, who had his eyes closed, Ban Yang reluctantly took out his own phone.

"Alright, boss."

After entering the number digit by digit, Ban Yang made the call.

He even considerately turned on the speakerphone.

Qin Mingchuan was surrounded by darkness.

Supporting his aching forehead with one hand, he remained silent, just listening to the ringing tone from the phone.

Each ring seemed to be the only thread connecting them at this moment.

But in the end, the connection was never made.

No surprise there.

Su Xingyao still didn't answer Ban Yang's call.

Listening to the disconnected tone as the system automatically hung up.

Qin Mingchuan finally snapped out of it.

Finding Su Xingyao's new number was easy.

But in this relationship, he had long lost control of the situation.

Su Xingyao had not only changed their phone number but had also completely pushed him far away from their life.

Qin Mingchuan managed a bitter smile.

Xing Yao must have been completely fed up with him, right?

That's why he left without looking back back then.

He didn’t even want to see him one last time.