A Star Reborn: The Queen’s Return

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

Xu Fosheng might only be an entertainment reporter, but she also had her own die-hard fans.

Those fans loved her merciless and to-the-point style of writing. Seeing this abnormal situation about her praising Ye Xingling and not putting anyone down, they all felt that there must be something else they had missed. How could it be possible that their Master Fo did not insult anyone? There must be something else hidden… There must be!

Everyone started to gossip around and carefully studied every word and sentence.

Silence is a virtue, what about not being silent?

“Obviously that means the person had poor upbringing.” Sister Mai Na laughed gently and sat gracefully on the sofa in Xia Ling’s house, with her slender legs crossed over each other and Er Mao resting tamely by her legs.

During that period of time, Sister Mai Na often came to visit Xia Ling and even grew closer and more familiar with Er Mao. Uncle Er Mao was a leopard with a double standard. It often held its head high when it was with Kiddo Xiao Ling, yet it was as tame as a little kitty when it was with Sister Mai Na.

Kiddo Xiao Ling was really, really sad. Filled with resentment, she shot a glance at Uncle Er Mao which was pretending to be tame.

Sister Mai Na switched on a light-weight laptop and hinted at Xia Ling to go over and take a look. “Look, everyone is discussing online how you used silence to protect the weak, and in comparison, Xia Yu wasn’t as calm as you. She not only fanned the flames, she even feigned illness to cheat everyone. She really has poor upbringing.”

Xia Ling used the mouse to scroll down and saw countless comments, which were all criticizing Xia Yu penetratingly.

—— Both came from an orphanage and were adopted by Boss Pei, how come the late Diva Xia Ling was brought up to be elegant and charismatic yet Xia Yu isn’t? She is worlds apart from her sister.

—— That’s right, how can she even compare to her sister? Seems like some people are born evil.

—— Xia Yu has poor character!

—— Xia Yu is a slut!

Every single comment was increasingly insulting.

Xia Ling read the comments at a high speed and suddenly stopped at a post.

That post showed a short video of Xia Yu, which was secretly taken. She was shielded by a group of staff members as she exited her car when a randomly opened bottle of mineral water flew towards her, splashing water all over her and cutting her a sorry figure.

The comments were flooded with approvals and sometimes there would be a few die-hard fans trying to protect Xia Yu, their idol. However, they were hopelessly outnumbered and soon were flooded by the huge waves of incoming comments.

“Are you pleased?” Sister Mai Na asked, laughing.

Not many people knew that she had been good friends with Xu Fosheng for many years but rarely sought help from her. This time, to help Xia Ling, she specially asked a favor from Xu Fosheng, which was to publish that article. On one hand, it was to boost Xia Ling’s popularity, and on the other, it was to put Xia Yu down.

Xia Ling was very grateful for Sister Mai Na’s help, but she had mixed feelings. It was as though she put in her all to win a battle, and all that was left was a void and exhaustion. She wasn’t happy or unhappy, she only felt that the affairs of the world were inconstant. Not long ago, the public had believed the groundless accusations about her and scolded her intensely without any reservation. Yet at that moment, they again believed the tabloids Sister Mai Na and the others had created and used the same extreme attitude when dealing with Xia Ling.

Sister Mai Na observed her and slowly said, “Xiao Ling, to be merciful to your enemy is to be cruel to yourself.”

Xia Ling was stunned and fell silent for a while before nodding her head.

Actually, she wasn’t being softhearted, she merely felt that the world was absurd, exaggerating and unrealistic. They could praise someone to the heavens in one moment and smash them to the ground in the next. She only wanted to make music peacefully and live a simple life. But she could not understand why trouble always came knocking at her door.

Sister Mai Na patted her shoulder lightly and said, “You need only focus on making your music, the company will help you settle all the other stuff.”

Gratitude filled her heart. Yes, it was all Sister Mai Na and Li Lei’s credit this time.

If it wasn’t for them, she couldn’t have managed the situation at all.

Due to Xu Fosheng’s article, Xia Ling’s popularity grew yet another level.

At the same time, Xia Yu lost all her popularity. Her car was smashed and she was attacked by flying mineral water bottles. But all those weren’t important. The most fatal blow was that many companies refused to work with her, especially in the advertising aspect, no company dared to use a celebrity with such a poor image to endorse their products. Even her songs were not fit to be the background music for any show or event.

The media all predicted that Xia Yu, the new nascent star Imperial Entertainment was backing, would fade out of the industry soon.

However—

Who knew she had such a good sister?

Many days later.

The entertainment news was overwhelmed with reports regarding one thing, the chief music producer of Imperial Entertainment, the music producer reserved for the Diva Xia Ling when she was alive, Feng Kun, had returned from his overseas leave of absence.

Sister Mai Na’s mind was in a whirl when she received the news. “Here comes Xia Yu’s rescue team.”

Xia Ling looked at her in bewilderment.

Sister Mai Na sighed and said, “Do you know the purpose of his return?”

Xia Ling shook her head.

“Can you take more time to follow the entertainment news?!”

Xia Ling looked at her, feeling wronged. She wasn’t interested and didn’t have time as well… Ever since her leave ended, Wei Shaoyin had been on her back, rushing her songs day and night. She had already been wishing that there were 48 hours in a day, why would she have the extra time to notice the entertainment news?

Sister Mai Na understood that she was busy and sighed. “Forget it… Xia Ling debuted for ten years and Feng Kun produced ten years of music for her, not accepting any offers made by anyone else. So, you can only imagine the status he has in the hearts of Xia Ling’s fans. Ever since Xia Ling’s death, he produced one debut song for Xia Yu because of Xia Ling. He then went overseas and vanished without a trace.”

“This time he suddenly returned and announced that he would start to compose ‘The Caged Butterfly.’ It’s such major news, who would even bother to continue paying attention to the trivial matters regarding Xia Yu?”

“The Caged Butterfly.”

Xia Ling’s expression grew complex.

She remembered this song too well. It was the last encore song she sang on stage before she was murdered in her previous life. That song was not pre-arranged on the list of songs and was not made known to the world beforehand. Even her music producer Feng Kun, manager Chu Chen and also all the staff member, had not known of its existence.

It was the only song she had composed during that year when she was imprisoned by Pei Ziheng.

The butterfly who can’t fly/imprisoned within a web/broken wings/the last song

The butterfly who can’t fly/the ever-spreading web/bloodied wings/wishes into ashes

Closing her eyes, the broken melody easily started to play inside her head. She had once crawled and groveled at Pei Ziheng’s feet in her sheer clothing which was unable to cover her body fully, used her trembling mouth to kiss his shoes and cried, begging him for a pen and a piece of paper, so that she could write down some things in that endless caged-life filled with hopelessness… Only then, she could slightly feel that she was still alive.

He finally showed mercy and gave her a quill, as well as a stack of soft white paper.

He placed them beside the floor mat near to the window, a spot very far from her. She needed to pull the golden chain on her leg taut and stretch her body to its limit before she could reach them. Then, she needed to withstand the pain of her limbs almost tearing apart before she could write down bits and pieces of the song’s melody bit by bit.